Walk Alone

Forgive the callous title. I’ve deliberately kept myself away from the newspaper and news channels for the past fortnight. So, it came as a surprise when I saw quite a lot of my friends getting worked up over this.

With all the sensitivity due in this situation, I feel that the blogs have been reduced to social welfare platforms, the likes of which are often caricatured in sitcoms.

Outrage expressed in the natural flow of things is outrage. Outrage expressed in such a collected and deliberate manner that it screams, “Look, I’m outraged!!”; can hardly salve our conscience. Nothing more than common sense (if that, at all) is needed to realise that we all condemn such an act. Somehow, the word crime and criminal are not sufficient. The contempt that is felt cannot be expressed well enough through such terms. Yes, all the male population does fantasise about getting laid some time or the other, but when it comes to violating the dignity, the respect of a lady , we all think and react the same way - its not something we condone. The perp is, somehow, less than a man.

I got a Nokia 2600, thanks to my father. Classic Nokia design and a great phone for a first time user. What it lacks (seriously lacks) is connectivity. No WAP. No GPRS. No IrDA, USB or Bluetooth. This is one phone thats in a world of its own. But look at the bright side of things. I won’t spend my time changing wallpapers, logos and tunes. This phone is meant for talking and thats what I’m going to use it for… a pity really. I’m now tracking all the connectivity-enabled phones in the market. I wonder whether I can swap it for a 3100 or 3120 anytime soon? Maybe. Maybe not. You never know.

****

The OOAD project is giving me a lot of trouble. I’m seeing the worst of human nature here. Oh well, its not like I’m some perfect individual. Far from it. But the actions of certain individuals defy comprehension. Everytime I say, “No, he won’t do that“, that is exactly what happens. Each time, its like some acid chipping away at a rock. I’m respecting the guy less and less.

****

Last Friday’s post has come in for a lot of derision and scorn. Now what can I say? Hold it against me that I’ve not travelled around in the city as much as you guys. That some (or maybe, a lot of) places in the city are still unknown to me. That I’m naive or rustic when it comes to knowing this city’s landmarks and locations and routes.

So what? Kill me?

****

Is it just me or is Blogger not accepting images today?

update: Uploaded the picture, standard mug shot.

This is a good example of the windows dumbing down effect - you make computers so simple to operate that even a cockroach dropped on its head will be able to use one. Theoretically, that is.

This guy got a PC 2 years back - preloaded with win xp. 8 months later, when we visited his place, it became known that he had mistaken the RESET button for a cabinet decal. He later on claimed that his machine never caused him to use the button, so he didn’t have to look for it. Seems his machine was able to detect that all processes were frozen and had a master process hidden somewhere that would trigger a restart. Genius! Now, if such a process could run when all others were frozen, why didn’t it do a win32 version of ‘kill -all’? And whats that brilliant feature? How come its not on other hardware/win32 platforms? Wonder whether he made it up himself.

A couple of weeks back, the same guy has been asking us for a web browser. An explorer, to be precise. Win32 users think ‘explorer’ when they think ‘internet’. I used to think explorer was a trademark name of the MS web browser and file system viewer. Anyways, this guys effectively wants a browser because he doesn’t have any other application on his PC that can be used to get files from the net. He has Yahoo Messenger though. He has no idea of ftp. And worst of all, after using winxp for two years, he didn’t know that IE has been integrated into Windows Explorer. Yes, he does know it now.

Thats pretty much the message. Cupid from portrait of an angel now has started putting his experiences on a blog. He says he no longer looks on blogging with a negative tint. Good for him. A lot of my friends have started blogging. But whether it moves beyond the one entry jinx remains to be seen. As for me, my ‘blogs’ bookmarks folder now has a good number of blogs that I regularly catch up with, specially when there’s nothing much happening on the IM circuit.

Predictably, the loveblog, as it is called, has become the craze in our immediate circle - with Cupid basking alternately in its glory and then trying to hush it all up. Duh. Let it flow, I say. He has practically nothing to lose if it goes big time.

There’s this girl I know. …pretty, even beautiful. Seen her smiling. Never seen her angry. She’s real helpful if anyone asks her for help. Pity though… nearly everyone tries to set her up as a trophy - or they fear others will think that way if they act close with her. So the guys are real diffident when dealing with her. Those who are friendly get labelled - and the labels are not complementary at all. Her friends are all in other class-groups. She’s alone, I guess, in her own class-group… mingling with whosoever accepts her in their group when performing lab experiments - like a feather riding a zephyr. When the zephyr drops, the feather floats down…

I read somewhere that some girls are like pearls… pearls inside oysters. She’s someone’s pearl for sure.

Why am I writing this? A friend has fallen for her. It was like nearly everyone liked this lady. But guess one guy finally turned out to be man enough to create trouble for himself by revealing all, eh?