Ok….it just happened….i got that 80 Gb HDD I’ve been wanting ever since I got to know that big is better…..Ladies and gentlemen, with a smile on my face, I declare that I now have 80 + 40 = 120 fucking gigs of space on my compuer!!!!!!

Next comes the herculean (and boring) task of transferring all the stuff from  cds to the hdd. Really curious to know how much of the 80 Gb i’ll actually end up using with my present collection of music, sw and vids…my estimate is that around 50gb will be used up now, and the rest when I meet this character called tchuckler (who lives in a far away land called M’lore)…can’t wait to listen to Porcupine Tree. My intention was to buy a 512 RAM stick first, and the hdd sometime next month….but unfortunatley, prices of RAM are quite hight at the moment.

Got a few things scheduled for the week that starts tomo…a  Robohelp X5 seminar on the 1st…my Mgate 3 project submission on the 3rd…looks like its gonna be an interesting, the next 5 days…

As of now, I’m gonna continue watching windows say “10 seconds remaining” while it actually takes more than that to copy from CD to hdd..and to think that they christened this thing a ‘computer’….sigh..

the magic has begun…

As told earlier…

note: right click and open URLs in new window

1) NOD32 2.006 - Not many would have heard of this, but trust me, Norton belongs to the trash-can. One of the best Antiviruses around, NOD32 is pretty lightweight too. And fast. Infact, the fastest. Completes a full system scan in a matter of minutes.

Also rans: Kaspersky Antivirus Pro and F-secure

2) Winamp 5.03a - Needs no introduction, or appreciation. By far the best. And its free!!. Recomended plugins: Evil Lyrics - get lyrics for any song instantly (needs net connection) Powerplayer (www.powerplayer.tk): Watch vids on winamp.

Also rans: Musicmatch Jukebox

3)Opera 7.50 - Greatest browser with in-built ad-blocker, tabbed browser, email client, password vault..almost everything you’d ever want. Once you get used to Opera, you’ll never want to use anything else. IE? Who? What?

Also rans: Firefox, MyIE, Mozilla.

4)Thunderbird - Simple, easy and robust email client. It’s free too.

Also rans: the built in email client in Mozilla and Opera

5)Yahoo Messenger 6 - nothing to say that is not already known. New users probably would like to know that version 6 has new smilies, Launchcast radio built into the messenger, stealth settings that let you choose whom you are invisible to, audibles (something like smilies, but with audio)….and a new look.

Also rans: Hate to admit, but MSN Messenger (ONLY becoz its popular)

6)Flashget 1.6 - Download manager. Did you ask what? Ok, a download manager takes care of your downloads by: (a)Enqueing your downloads (so that you don’t need to save URLs) (b)Resuming broken downloads (great if you have a dial-up) (c) generally making life easy..

Also rans: Getright, Download Accelerator Plus

7)Winrar 3.50b - For those who have heard of only winzip (coz it comes bundled with Windows), welcome to the sweet world of Winrar. With options such as auto-split, creating auto-extracting files, Winrar not just has more options, but also offers the best compression.

Also rans: I guess only Winzip, by default.
FreshUI - Don’t like to display My Computer on your desktop? Need to tweak your windows settings? FreshUI helps you do it all. A great free tweaking too.

Also rans: TweakNow PowerPack 2003

9)ZoneAlarm Pro 5 - If you have cable internet (or an always on connx), you’ll definitely need a firewall…nah..you’ll definitely need ZoneAlarm. Easy to use, ZoneAlarm ensures that you stay hidden on the net, and also protected from hackers and the like.

Also rans: none

10) EAC - A cool CD ripping tool, this freeware uses LAME as its primary decoder. Gives amazingly good quality mp3s. It’s a li’l slow though.

Also rans: Audiograbber - infact, this is very good too.

This list will grow….

Listening to an earlier album of Opeth now….Deliverance..was recorded at the same time as Damnation…I am also chatting with a colleague who is in the next cabin….a sudden wave of realization hits me..how many moments of my life have i given to this thing called ‘chatting’….sure, it’s fun..i dont disagree (if you do, you need therapy…in an old age home)…but all these voices….chatting is so incomplete, yet its so casual and convenient…unfortunatley, me thinks that end of the day, chatting is so friggin incomplete..anyways, i’ll be drifting into something else in exactly 0.5 secs…

Communication…what an important word..for 4 years, I was ‘educated’ in the fine art of Electronics and Communications…for 4 years I had to check every now and then that the world was not as insane as it reeled out before me….i was shell shocked in a shell…people existed on such a diff level that I was only enjoying coming in terms with the diff dimensions of existence…trust me, some levels are no fun..

And what, my dear friend, is anyone’s problem about the fact that there are diff levels of existence? Absolutely nothing… as long as someone like Laloo doesn’t become PM (he’s already Railways Minister..we’ll soon have announcements in railway stations that go like “Sorry, but train no 6466 will not arrive because it has gone missing” *)…

As long as you know that people who are not like you, don’t want you to become like them…as long as live and let live is not just counterindicative of live and let die….as long as you are not judged becoz of the level you are on…as long as you can BE because you ARE…

No, I am not the victim of some kind of discrimination….No, I am not preaching equality for all…and NO, I am not singing Gandhi’s song..(or waving his walking stick and preaching)…

I am just pointing out the fact that end of it all, its communication that gets affected. The moment you build walls, the moment you start drawing lines, the moment you begin judging people depending on which side of the line they are (or whether they have the right to draw lines), you forget that that these divisions exist and all you do is to start defending walls, lines and making a lot of noise about whichever side you are on. You are either never actually communicating anything worthwhile, or you are locked up in your own world (same thing, in a way)..And consequence of that is what i have described in two paras before this one…

I guess this discussion will not reach any definite conclusion, because “worthwhile” is a relative term…

However, I believe that there are intentions to contemplate on the next time there is a quarell with the parking lot guy for a 50p change. These intentions are locked inside the head, so no point looking outside for answers.

* This was a cartoon that appeared in the English paper Punch at a time when train robberies where at its peak.

What I’ve learned……
~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ve learned - that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is
stalk them and hope they panic and give in.

I’ve learned - that no matter how much I care, some people are just
assholes.

I’ve learned - that it takes years to build up trust, and only
suspicion, not proof, to destroy it.

I’ve learned - that you can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes.
After that, you’d better have a big dick or huge tits.

I’ve learned - that you shouldn’t compare yourself to others - they are
more fucked up than you think.

I’ve learned - that you can keep puking long after you think you’re
finished.

I’ve learned - that we are responsible for what we do, unless we are
celebrities.

I’ve learned - that regardless of how hot and steamy a relationship is
at first, the passion fades, and there had better be a lot of money to
take its place.

I’ve learned - that sometimes the people you expect to kick you when
you’re down will be the ones who do.

I’ve learned - that we don’t have to ditch bad friends because their
dysfunction makes us feel better about ourselves.

I’ve learned - that no matter how you try to protect your children, they
will eventually get arrested and end up in the local paper.

Yeah, I’ve been there, done that…I relate to a few of those… (also heard somewhere in my head…YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO AN OPTIMIST..SO SHUT UP AND DON’T ADMIT…..)

Guess what….I’m blogging this post from my desktop!!!…I found this app called blogjet….it lets you do  a whole lotta stuff right from yer desktop..I previously thought that mailing my post would be a good way to blog when I don’t wanna login (to www.blogger.com) and all….but now I realised that there is a cooler way to do it…and that way is THIS!!!!

It seems to me that the last coupla days have been so exciting (yeah, stuff like this excites me) coz I found three great apps….

1) Opera 7.50 (the GREATEST browser)

2) Yahoo version  6 (the BEST way to IM)

3) Blogjet 1.00.18 (what can I say..it’s so COOL!!)

Actually, there are a whole lotta apps out there that make life not just easier, but also so much fun…(one day I’ll list out the stuff I’ve personally tested, used and found to be of great use.)

As of now, i gotta rush….

PS: My chaddi dost (well, not exactly chaddi, I know him since highschool)) got into AA, London. He’s gonna do his M. Arch there….SAP + AA….WAY TO GO!!

duh?

Lightning

There are those who believe that genres help them find music easily at record stores, and there are those who (secretly) believe that it’ll help them gain acceptance in the ever-defiant, not-like-you underground society of rebels.

If there is attempt to classify Opeth under any genre for the benefit of the above two kinds, then I’d rather listen to Damnation one more time than wait for a certain fitting classification to come my way.

But without waving the Opeth flag too high, it has to be said that this album is fantastic. Fantastic to listen to, and fantastic because it sidesteps all inertial judgement one might possibly have (about Opeth or the term ‘xxx-metal’). One can sense a familiar blend of melody and melancholy in all the songs, and I’ve heard that this is indicative of a new step that the band has taken.

From the very first track Windowpane, Opeth makes it clear that they have stacked away their distortion pedals and taken long walks down lonely snowfilled mountain paths to raise the album to a certain state of pensiveness. However, this has also resulted in the music having a certain mood-equalizer with unadjustable knobs built into it. The music is beautiful, but it halts one step behind being oustanding.

You would definitley want to listen to the songs over and over again. Chiefly to see where you can find a secret door that lets you escape into your own private thoughts. You won’t find one however, because Mikael Akerfeldt (vox) makes sure that your ears are locked to the band’s offering.

Alas, somewhere down the Damnation experience, you, like me, will notice that the only variety the band potrays is in expressing the often-walked path of sullenness differently. Quite a few bands attempt that mood (many only end up throwing you into a state of sulky stupor)and it is melody that makes Opeth stand apart.

This also means that after one too many listens, either you’ll tell yourself “I need to get out this Damnation mood”, or “gee, I haven’t heard anything else in two weeks, or “time to get back to some Morbid Angel (or Madonna)”.

Eitherways, when you get past the magnicficant Windowpane, you’ll realise that songs like Hope Leaves and Death Whispered A Lullaby are so humane that they are emotionally close to Roger Waters and musically close to Porcupine Tree. I should add (from what li’l I’ve heard) - unlike the monstrously complex tracks that Opeth belts out in earlier albums.

Ending Credits is an instrumental that befits its name. The last track however is Weakness and it’s subtle, soft sounds make sure that you have enough time to shake yourself and press the play button once more.

I took another test to determine how close my political views are to other leading figures. This is where I stand:

Doesnt that look very balanced?

Did you notice:

Saddam and Dubya are poles apart - literally.

Pope John Paul and Dalai Lama are also quite on opposite ends.

THE WORLD NEEDS A HERO!!