This is not fair!

No, not fair at all. Absolutely not. Just when I was wondering why newly joined employees in my office behave so differently from the way I used to behave back then, I see this article which says there is a generation gap between junior and senior students in the same college, who differ by just 2 years in age. I wonder what these kids would think of me... may be same as what I think about ancient Egyptian civilization.

2 years? Is that all it takes to create generation gap? It is as if the Orkut generation is different from the Facebook generation, which itself is ancient compared to the Twitter generation. What about people who started off with Yahoo Groups? Listen to me people, a generation is around 30 years. Or at least 20. Not 2. Okay? Do you listen?

Chitranna Chitranna

ನಾನು ಸಾಧಾರಣವಾಗಿ ಸುಮಧುರ, ಮಂದಗತಿಯ, ಉತ್ತಮ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯವಿರುವ ಹಾಡುಗಳನ್ನೇ ಕೇಳಲು ಇಷ್ಟ ಪಡುತ್ತೇನೆ. ಒಮ್ಮೊಮ್ಮೆ ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ತದ್ವಿರುದ್ಧವಾದ, 'ಗಲಾಟೆ' ತುಂಬಿರುವ ಹಾಡುಗಳೂ ಇಷ್ಟವಾಗುತ್ತವೆ. ಆದರೆ ಇಂಥಹ ಹಾಡುಗಳು ಬಹಳ ದಿನವೇನೂ favourite ಆಗಿ ಉಳಿಯುವುದಿಲ್ಲ. 'ಮುಂಗಾರು ಮಳೆ'ಯ ನಂತರ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನ ಸಂಗೀತ ನಿರ್ದೇಶಕರು ಅದೇ 'ಫಾರ್ಮುಲ' ಅನುಸರಿಸಿ ಮಧುರ ಗೀತೆಗಳನ್ನು ನೀಡಲು ಪ್ರಯತ್ನಿಸುತ್ತಿರುವುದರಿಂದ ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ನನಗೆ ಇಷ್ಟ ಆಗುವ fast beats ಇರುವ ಹಾಡುಗಳೇ ಬಂದಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಆದರೆ ಕಳೆದ ವಾರದಿಂದ ಚಿತ್ರಾನ್ನ ಚಿತ್ರಾನ್ನ ಹಾಡು ನನ್ನ ಮನಸ್ಸನ್ನು ಹಿಡಿದಿಡುವಲ್ಲಿ ಯಶಸ್ವಿಯಾಗಿದೆ. ಇದರ ಟ್ಯೂನ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂಥರಾ ಆಕರ್ಷಣೆ ಇದೆ. ಎಲ್ಲಾ ರೇಡಿಯೋ ಸ್ಟೇಷನ್ ಗಳೂ ಈ ಹಾಡನ್ನು ದಿನಕ್ಕೆ ನೂರು ಸಲ ಹಾಕಿ ಇದರ ಮೇಲೆ ವಾಕರಿಕೆ ಬರುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡುವುದು ಗ್ಯಾರೆಂಟಿ. ಆದರೆ ಅಲ್ಲಿಯವರೆಗೆ ಈ 'different' ಹಾಡು ನನಗಿಷ್ಟ.

Aid for one-handed steering

Anyone who drives in Bangalore's peak hour traffic will be good at steering with just one hand. The left hand is busy with changing between 1st and 2nd gears. Unless of course you drive an automatic. If we are going to do one-handed steering, we might as well make it easy. Now-a-days these knobs that cling on to a side of the steering wheel are becoming popular. It somehow caught my fancy and I bought one.


The knob turns internally, making it super-easy to make any complex turn, even a sharp U-turn with just one hand. It is also useful on a straight road, because it makes steering much easier. So far, I have liked it. If you have been thinking about buying it, I suggest you go right ahead.

How not to place your advertisements

This was an example of not planning the placement of your newspaper advertisement properly.

On Page 23, there is this news:
On Page 24, some more about this topic:
And on Page 26, this advertisement:

Buying a mobile phone

It is that time again.... time to buy a mobile phone. My old cell phone is still alive, but it doesn't have much life left in it. It is a trusted Nokia 3230. It was a prized possession when I bought it in 2005. It was a fashion statement. Now, looking back, I cannot figure how a phone that is as slow as that (a full 45 second boot-up time + 15 seconds for menu to get activated) could become such a big success. This phone has absorbed a lot of physical impact, like falling and rolling from Savanadurga hill, being dropped to ground innumerable times and so on. It has bruises all over to show for it's adventures. However, what gravity could not do, water did. It fell in a wash-basin when the tap was on!

I am a really slow decision maker, so I may not buy another phone just yet. I am not really too much electronics-crazy. However, we males have this strange brain model that makes us want a gadget that we don't need. This phone has a speakerphone with sub-woofer and home theatre support? Wow! That phone runs Linux? Can I run bash on it and run my python scripts? Tri-band phone is a necessity even though I never carry my phone abroad. That sort of creature we males are. No wonder handset manufacturers love us!

Thankfully, reality strikes us when we look at the prices. 31 freaking K for that snazzy new touchscreen phone? If I were spending that sort of money I would expect to get a laptop, not a cellphone. 25K for that phone that syncs my e-mail to the phone? Oh... I don't really need to see my mail on my mobile.... Eventually you settle for something that is still more than what you need, but less than what you want.

I have looked at the specs of a few phones. I am looking at a range of phones from Nokia 3600 the Sony-Ericsson P1i. I wonder which one I end up buying eventually. And when.

Update: I got my trusted 3230 resurrected by spending Rs. 650 and convinced myself that it can do everything I need from a mobile phone for now.