Wednesday, September 27, 2006

That cause for celebration!

Now, let's sit and talk about the good stuff in life.
You see, there are days that just go by and then, there are days that hang on to you like chewing gum. I don't really know what I'm trying to say here and am far from knowing which one of those days it is, but being part of "the good stuff" in life, today's September 27.

To the inexperienced eye and an unaware calender, today might be pretty useless. But to those like me, today cannot go without being mentioned. Yes-sir-ree-bob, it's the day.
Take a guess and have a look around.
It is because today happened 8 years ago, that you are able to find anything on the internet. It is because today happened a bunch of years ago, that we (or at least I) can be happy watching certain TV shows.

I can't hold it in any longer, so come along people, shout out loud! Happy birthday Miss Rakshanda Khan! And Happy birthday to you too, Google!

iPods on a Plane

Ever since Apple introduced the iPod, it's been racking our curiosity. The big Q is revolves around how they fit so much space into such a tiny shell. But surprisingly, there's a bigger Q.

And now, it's been answered.

iPod + Toilet = Ouch.

It all started when I got out of my seat to go to the bathroom. I went to the bathroom, washed my hands, and returned to my seat. A little while later the two stewardesses on the flight crossed each other in the aisle. They had a quick conversation that I was in earshot of.

"I locked off the front lav. There's something in the toilet that's preventing it from flushing. Run some water and see if you can clear it." My face immediately turned red. The seat cover! I thought. It must have been too big to flush! I should have thrown it out!

I was so embarrassed. I tried to act normal ... I took a sudden interest in the contents of the seat pocket in front of me, acted nonchalant and all. I watched as the stewardess got on her hands and knees in the lavatory and did unfathomable dirty work.

Sometime later, I decided it would be best if I forgot the whole thing happened, so I went to put on my headphones and drown myself in iPod music. But ... no iPod. I panicked, checked my other pockets...
[continue reading]

A little word of advice: Don't try this iPod experiment at home.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Surf's Up

Little Billy was ahead and head of the game when it came to having fun. Online gamers knew him as ‘lil Army’, and chat rooms hung him up on the wall of fame. That is, until next morning, when him mom woke him up and told him about the test later that day. “I hope you were up studying all night, Billy”.

Little Billy was behind. In fact, he wasn’t going to touch passing grades with a ten-foot pole. That wasn’t the first test he flunked, and it surely wasn’t going to be the last.
Put Billy aside, it’s the truth that circles most children today. According to what they believe, “School ain’t cool” and “Online rules!” Making use of the information highway to gather around everything but information is what they do. But who is to blame?
Of course, these kids are part of the guilty, but as guilty as they are, parents cannot be left out.

Kids need to instill a sense; a positive knowledge to buckle up and start studying. They couldn’t be more wrong if they think that the Internet will keep them alive. And parents should be trusted to knock some sense into them. They cannot just go and watch TV and expect their kids to study behind their backs, because that would be injustice to both.

Apart from parents and children, it’s school that needs a little cleaning up. Teachers were never told to expect that kids study at tuitions, but that’s what they do. They must ensure that everyone gets attention and must make learning fun. Play Mathematical games and do a Geography quiz to make it sound interesting, because kids resort to escapism only if there’s something they don’t understand. If they don’t understand, it’s not interesting. And if it’s not interesting, “Billy’s gone online”.

And Kids must be taught, because they are the future of the nation. Without studying and only sitting online, the only degree they’ll get is a false one. False certificates will cause insufficient knowledge to overflow, and you might end up getting operated on by a doctor who can’t tell a kidney from a brain.

Isn’t all that worth teaching your kid about the value of education?

Monday, September 18, 2006

It started today

Any more later, and blogspot would have become so foreign to me, that my body's immune system would have started attacking it.

Quite frankly, they've begun the attack, and I'll have to move out of my absence so that I can begin to step foot into a stage of recovery.
Anyway, I don't really know how many of you have gone by what the title suggests, but last year, today, FHW came into action.

Finding the scene being focused on blogging, I started out by researching on what blogs actually were and chanced to hit Blogger.com. Read a couple of pretty looking "web-logs" and hit myself with the bravery to slap my own blog into cyberspace. But now, I recall, that before I actually went up to set my blog's URL, I was afraid to pick my own ID; I cancelled the blog making process twice, but ended up satisfying my curiousity.
I finally decided that if I ever were to write about something, it just couldn't be conformed to one thing, hence the title - "a few hundred words" - something about not just one thing.

So there you have it, folks, from writing everywhere to somewhere, about the Indian Government, to Sania Mirza, from CBSE's delayed action, to Delhi streets, from Miss Khan, to poetry; that's 60 posts, around 14,400 words and a round off 210 comments.
Call me a show-off, I've somehow been pulled into the regions of GlobalVoices (ha!) and have been added to IndianPad, anonymously, by anonymous people.

Call this a cause for celebration (#7), for I can see confetti filling my view.