[source - ananda vikatan]

Anbe Sivam !!

Yes, the 5th birthday of this blog. Four years completed. What started as an extremely spontaneous reaction to a rediff article[Part 1 & Part 2] by Anita Bora and Nidhi ‘Sunshine’ Rathi, has lasted for four complete years. For the first six months, I was the only reader for this blog. And then it was noticed by a few. After that three years of sheer roller-coaster ride with lots of fun, excitement, learning and sharing.

Unlike previous years, I was determined not to forget Feb 25th and I managed to remember it today. One sunny afternoon, while browsing rediff, I bumped against this article, I, Me,My Blog by Anita. It was a time when I thought writing a short story for Sulekha was the shortest way of becoming a writer. But heck, to be very honest I was never thinking of writing/scribbling anything like this. The article was certainly well written and it introduced me a word, WEBLOG. Thanks to Anita. The ‘Also Read’ section of the article had a link to another column, Instant Journalism which caught my fancy. I went bonkers over that story which said, a guy named Mahesh Shantaram had 60 followers daily. 60 followers daily. Holy Cow !!. Those days 60 unique page hits to a blog meant stupendous success. And Mahesh Shantharam was called a BLOGGER. A Blogger ?. My interest level was peaking.

Without much hesitation, I went over to blogger.com and signed-up. So what should be the author name, I thought. Who cares, I told myself. lazygeek was a nickname I gave myself when I created a rediffmail ID, few days back. A brain wave for that struck me, at the stroke of a midnight session at office when I was racking my brains to come up with a pseudo name for myself. I was neither lazy nor a total geek. So how bout lazygeek, an aspirational pseudo name. So this blog was named scribbles of a lazy geek. I didn’t write a blogpost once I created an ID. I logged out and went ahead to see Mahesh’s blog. Mahesh was the Big B of blogging at that time. As a matter of fact there were only a handful of bloggers at that time. After glancing his blog, I decided that the blog should have stuff that I love to discuss about and those things about my place/movies/people which never found the light on the internet. So I scribbled something as a post. Not one but three posts on the same day. First one at 2:14 pm, second at 2:16 pm and the third at 6:53 pm. I had very little idea about a blog and things needed for being a blogger. And that’s how it all started. Rest of the story is available as four year archives.

As Dave Winer says, “This blog’s readers are collectively smarter than the author”. This ain’t true not only for this blog but for every other blog around. So its the readers who have inspired me to write. Even when I was the only reader it was the reader in me who kept the thing going. Plain six months, no one else to read the bloody blog. I had no clue where to go and whom to ask, on how to pull audience towards a blog. No one blogrolled this blog nor even bothered to drop a comment. However, I didn’t write anything great and that’s one of the reason why no one dropped in. These days, given the wide awareness of blogs, every other blog receives a good readership and enough comments(including spams) to keep the fire going. But just in case, if you have a blog like what was here four years back, you are one your way to strike Hatrick at Indibloggies. Keep Bloggin !!.

Anti did inform me about this but it was only today I actually bumped on it. This blog is one among the Top 500 blogs rolled through blogrolling. As of today its on rank 251 with over 237 blogs rolling it. Kiruba’s is at 243rd rank.

These are all quantitative stuff. All quantitative and no qualitative analysis would lead to obscurity. So no yaps on the blog being one among top 500. Infact, I’m surprised by the number of blogs blogrolling this one. I have to extend my thanks not just by this blogpost but by this link back page, where there is a reciprocal link. Thanks again.

Was watching Shankar’s Kadhalan on the DVD player. Didn’t expect that I would hate it this much. Talk about yelling like mad for ‘once more’ of Oorvasi and Mukkabla at Sathyam Theatre on the First Day First Show. While the corrupt governor talked about Shankar’s social sense, the love story woven around it, I think, didn’t blend very well. Who observed all these, when it was released. All I knew was to bang the tiffinbox for Errani Kurrani Gopala song, alongwith the hundreds of New College dudes. SPB gets to be the aatharsa appa. Remember the appa in Sujatha’s Pirivom Sandippom who gives his son a couple of bucks for a smoke. Here SPB sips a bottle of Golden Eagle beer with his son. Shankar’s improvisation.

Rahman was obviously the highlights of this musical. The variety of the songs was just phenomenal. From Jeyachandran in Kollayila Thennai Vaithu to Unnikrishnan’s Ennavaley to Suresh Peters & Rahman’s own Oorvasi, the grandeur songs and their picturisation just minisculed the stamp-sized story.

When it was released, I used to wait to catch a glimpse of Shankar and Raju Sundaram in the song, Kadhalikum Penin. Until today I was thinking it was only those two who were noticeable in that crowd. Today, I even saw another guy sitting left of Shankar. The one smiling at the camera in the picture above. I am sure we all know him by know. But just in case, guess ? Raju Sundaram is connected to this guy through the movie Jeans.

That’s the ratio of a valid comment to a spam comment, this blog receives. I think the spammers are just nuts. Despite the ‘no follow’ parameter set on every blog comment, I’ve have no clue why spammers are still busting this blog. Nothing happens to their comments. I simply delete them. Are they sadistic enough to waste time in churning comments and be happy that I’m wasting time in deleting comments? I don’t think so. Would be great if some mainstream media does an underground story on them.

They say Word Press has excellent spam control stuff. Prabhu suggested this long time back. Now I’m not interested to move to Word Press because I don’t want to do the same mistake I did a couple of years back in moving from Blogger to Movable Type. Though MT offers more than excellent blogging features, their spam control hasn’t met the needs completely.

Also, I’m tad upset with Google for not being aggressive with Blogger. Even the blogger blog, Buzz, sucks big time. Couple of years back, they used to have wonderful editorials on Blogger. Now they have come to a near stop. Did Google do a mistake of buying Blogger? Would Blogger be better-off without Google? Instead of being bothered by these stuff, I only wish they buck up and finish the known issues & feature requests. At least let the world know what they are up to.

[Source - Sujatha's Column in Kumudam ]

The last time he said that was in Vikatan. I had duly noted it on the blog, even then. Here’s the blogpost, Aathalinal Kaathal Seithen. Luckily you don’t need a UID/Pass to read the old column. FYI, this is a classical Sujatha style column.

Though I couldn’t buy his argument from the perspective of a society, his science seems to convince me.

Bill Gates talks to Channel 9, the Microsoft Video Blog. Unlike the usual interviews where formal keynotes and strategies are discussed, this one is a welcome break.

Gates is very informal in this seventeen minute clip. Though essentially played in Channel 9 as a curtain raiser to Mix 06, there are some interesting questions asked and answered.

Jeeva, R B Chaudary’s son, seems to be a natural actor. Couple of days back, I watched his first flick Aasai Aasaiyai and some parts of his latest flick , Dishoom. He is completely cool about his on-screen presence which I think most of our new generation heroes fail badly. Either they have to keeping moving on screen or they have to do something to hide their nervousness. Jeeva seems very very cool and his dialogue delivery is so natural that Vijay / Ajith / Simbhu can rightaway take join a two hour training session with him. And yeah, he is pretty tall and also capable of some good kollywood’s gyrating dances.

Contrary to the public opinion, I disliked his characterization and his performance in Ram. And the movie sucked so badly that I wished it was never taken in the first place. If only he could sign-up for the ‘right movies’ unlike Ram, I’m sure he is going to hang around for some more time to come.

Was listening to an old favorite, Minsaaram Enn Meethu Paaikindrathey from Vidhyasagar’s Run. Absolutely elegant music with amazing use of percussions. The rushing tempo is also maintained throughout the song.

Harish Raghavendra was at his very best. Sadhana Sargam has been my favorite ever since her hindi debut except that her Tamil sucks. Azhagan becomes Alagan and so on. But then, I only wish she could get the pronounciation straight. Astounding voice. I think the guy who shouts Kaadhal Seeyae(continously) and the humming before the first saranam is the one listed as Jack Smely. What a team effort.

This was a personal favorite for a group of friends and we would listen to it all the time while driving. Forgot it somewhere down the line but enjoyed it thoroughly today.