Shot using the flip and edited for a one minute clip.

Again, I wasn't trying to say much. Just another editing trial to see if i can actually fit some narration into one minute.

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The Flip, a truly handy camcorder is the hot new toy in the US. It looks like your blackberry pearl and it captures videos at 640*480 resolution. The Flip Ultra can capture an hour of video in its 2 gig solid state memory. It is certainly a glorified webcam but the usability and its direct-to-youtube software is making it popular among soccer moms of the country.

When I first read about Flip, it was minimalist personified for me and that drove me to buy one. Last night, I took it around for a spin. Here's an edited version of my drive through Redmond and back. Don't think too much about what I was trying to say, I wasn't trying to say anything. The song is a heavy metal rap called Click Click Boom by Saliva.

If you didn't like the quality, the blame is on me. I added the film grain to give it a rusty look. The colors are vivid except the sun looks like a big black hole.

Yes, the video is also promptly duplicated on youtube.

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Happened between two of my friends, over the weekend. I was a silent spectator and hence no comments.

Dude 1: (sipping his negramodelo beer) Machan, I know it isn't simple as it sounds but I don't think there is god.
Dude 2: Really...screw yourself. There is.
Dude 1: There what, God ?
Dude 2: Yes. Haven't you felt him when you wrote those exam numbers in oil, behind anjaneyar sannidhi. Nee pinna eppidi 10th pass pannina da, loosu ?
Dude 1: Hee Hee...that was a time, machan. Ok da..prove me and I will accept.
Dude 2: (moving his emptied beer bottle towards my doubting friend and pointing to it) This is god, machan.
Dude 1: (LOLing) Kamedy !! Thats an empty glass bottle with a piece of lime left on the long neck.
Dude 2: Hmm...so you don't believe it. Is that because you already know how god looks like ? I tell you this god. Why would you not believe it ?
Dude 1: Huh !! Guys get him another beer.
Dude 2: (looking at him deeply) Sir, I asked you a simple question, do you know how Gee-Ohh-Dee looks like. Why don't you believe this brownish bottle as god.
Dude 1: (heatedly) No. I don't know.
Dude 2: Then you have to believe me da.
Dude 1: God cannot be like this.
Dude 2: Why do you presume ? So you have already imagined how he looks like but you wouldn't accept that he is there ?
Dude 1: I think this is illogical conversation.
Dude 2: Really, I don't think so. I just showed you the almighty God, my friend. I just gave you the biggest spiritual truth.
Dude 1: I don't believe it.
Dude 2: I don't care. But question yourself again. Or prove me that this is not god ?
Dude 1: What ? Huh...Why don't we talk again about how you proposed to Preetha in 9th standard.

I realized only then, half of that authentic mexican restaurant has been staring at our table.

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Anbe Sivam !!

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[Pic - India Glitz]

Lady beside Suhasini - Atho oruthar vellai vaeti kattikittu irukaarulla, avaru kitta thaan Kushboo madam sorry ketaanga. Neengalum poi kelunga, periya manasu panni manichiduvaaru.

Suhasini thinking - Mudiyaathu...kandippa mudhiyaathu.

Me loudly - Right of speech ki jai !! Official sorry listener ki jai !!

P.S And you know all this is a buruda.

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It's becoming colder in Seattle. Its raining, windy and pleasantly cold. The kind of iira nilam that one would love to live. They have been telling me that as winter coses it, you would be terrible out of mood, blame it on the absence of sun. But for me it's becoming the other way. I do enjoy the sun but the cold weather combined with semi-frequent coming of the rains. This evening it was so windy with rain drizzles that I had my spirits uplifted. A different kind of feeling, that for a moment, makes you forget projects, go-lives, status reports, MOMs and what not.

Offlate, I'm voraciously reading and unexpectedly all the books that were in a long library queue are just pouring in. Besides Ashokamitran's Katuraigal Part 1, I'm having Rusdhie's Shalimar the Clown on my left hand, Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat on my right hand and a lovely book that I wouldn't disclose now. I want to certainly write a post on that special book.

Saw SJ Surya's Ah Aha and namma Surya's Ghajini. Ah Aha was loud, ugly and a sick movie. I'm planning to protest against Rahman tuning music for this dude. He has literally screwed up all the songs with crass creativity and glaring colors. The wide angle close-up shot is an overkill. The completely unrelated sentiment scenes seems to be targeted the thaaikulams while he was busy exploring the midriff of Nila. Does he think we are a bunch of idiots, watching his movie ? Ellyei !!

Satyaraj's Englishkaran is one good movie in the recent times with some common sense. It's typically a late 80's flick with a storyline that we have seen a million times, Satyaraj's satirical comedy rocks. If you can mock at the several happenings of Kollywood and Tamil Nadu politics, with a rehashed storyline, you could cast Satyaraj and make it into a hit, like this. Though we have seen similar movies from Satyaraj, watching truly crappy films from kollywood this year, this was a good time pass. The voluptuous Namitha portrayed as an athlete and she actually runs 100 meters in a tar road before she dies of the kollywood classic poison, arali vedhai. Though I'm not for this nuisance, I'm holding from cursing too much as Namitha Fans Association might actually protest to burn printouts of lazygeek.net. I ain't ready for all that !!

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And I ran, ran and ran. Haven't done something like this in the last few years. Per my self-assumed nick goes, I was always lazy enough to run on the treadmill. Even those wacky-techno-gizmos called walkman, CD player and mp3 player could only inspire me just a lil' bit. Last week, I was thinking about a blogpost to gather suggestions on Tamil songs for the Tread Mill. After all how many times could I listen to just Humma Humma, Uyirin Uyirey or the ultra cool Illamai Idho Idho.

While in college, I was a big fan of rock and heavy metal music. Even now, I would listen to it on any offbeat day but not regularly, like those college years(even before brushing teeth). Looking for a change, I banged my MP3 player with a dose of Metallica, a pinch of Judas Priest, one teaspoon of Megadeath and a big chunk of Iron Maiden sprinkled with Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory. What a suprise. I was running nonstop for more than 25 minutes. Spoiling my ears with those electric guitars and bass drummers, I was trying to help myself with the work-out. Phew !! What an irony.

If you don't believe, do it for yourself, listen to Metallica's ST.Anger, Iron Maiden's Can I pay with madness and Judas Priest's Metal Meltdown, see your mood getting relaxed. I have a dozen of Black Sabbath and Led Zep music for tomorrow. BTW, I still don't have a fresh list of Tamil songs for the tread mill. Any suggestions would help the fellow lazy's hanging out here !!

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So if you mamma said, Don't talk to strangers, she was right, then. Not anymore. On the internet, a stranger wants you to answer a question. Ofcourse when you answer you get a chance to ask a question. Take a timepass spin if you are Just Curio.us. Anonymity is the key.

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And what a useful service this is, you are going to think. Just in case you are busy coding your last part of unix script or regression testing the broken links in your .NET code or even seriously sighting the girl opposite to your house, never mind. When you are busy indulging in one of these things, like Madhvan to Reema Sen in Minnale, Save My A*S service would keep sending flowers to your girl friend(s ??) and will bill you after its been done. If only she or they were to notice this uniformity in sending flowers never mind, SMA would still save you A by sending surprise flowers that would make them feel what a lovable boy friend ya husband you are.

From Save My A*S site [via] -

Why do I need this?

If you're a successful professional whose career demands the bulk of your time, you know the situation. You want her to be happy, but work keeps you so busy... and maybe you're just not as good at being romantic as you'd like to be. Imagine how she'd feel if you sent her flowers on a regular basis. Sign up for this service once, and we'll take care of the rest.

How does it work?

You provide us with your billing info and her delivery address. We'll periodically send her flowers every 4-6 weeks, and bill you for each delivery individually (not prepaid). . We'll notify you before each order, and you can edit them in advance if you'd like. We'll schedule flowers for all the obligatory dates she expects (you'll never miss an important date again!) and we'll score you major points by making deliveries she doesn't expect. You will be amazed at what impact sending flowers for no apparent reason has.

I am not sure if Save My A*S would save your wallet but it would certainly save thousands of As a year. If you are one those MadanaKamarajan's use SMA to SYA.

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A year back, I was working at Chicago and while being there, I had recorded a voicemail welcome message on the phone, at my desk.

My friend currently works in the same building and incidentally at the same desk. Today when I tried to reach him, I heard my own voicemail welcome message. Two things here. One, my voice hasn't changed a bit. Its still anti-SPB. Two, who's the real lazy ??

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Without knowing that this was a spoof, I was truly surprised to see the world's smallest IPOD, iFlea. I realised half the way that all of this iFlea was a spoof. So I replayed the Ad and was LMAO !!. Truly funny given Apple's IPOD dominance and the way Apple uses to cash in profits.

Must watch it. Via Kottke.

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... men get tired of everything, of heaven no less than of hell; and that all history is nothing but a record of the oscillations of the world between these two extremes. An epoch is but a swing of the pendulum; and each generation thinks the world is progressing because it is always moving. But when you are as old as I am; when you have a thousand times wearied of heaven, like myself and the Commander, and a thousand times wearied of hell, as you are wearied now, you will no longer imagine that every swing from heaven to hell is an emancipation, every swing from hell to heaven an evolution. Where you now see reform, progress, fulfilment of upward tendency, continual ascent by Man on the stepping stones of his dead selves to higher things, you will see nothing but an infinite comedy of illusion. You will discover the profound truth of the saying of my friend Koheleth, that there is nothing new under the sun.

- by Geroge Bernard Shaw in one of the best books ever written, Man and Superman. I only wish we had a dozen of GB Shaw's alive to set the world on a wisdom quest. Though quoted by The Devil in the play, this single quote can balance you from overdosing your ego, whenever you feel accomplished. Adangumaa Kannu !!

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Writing with strands of
watery hair on her bare back
a love haiku

Enjoyed the Haiku by RK Singh.

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[click on the pic to enlarge]

Damn Funny!!. Via Venki.

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Behind Maggi 2 minute noodles pack:

Step 1: Boil one cup of water
Step 2: As soon as ganguly goes for batting, put the noodles in the boiled water and add the tastemaker.
Step 3: Stir till ganguly is on the field.
Step 4: As soon as ganguly is back in pavilion, your noodles are ready to eat.

If that's an old one, blame me not. It was delivered to me on e-mail, just yesterday.

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to become an Amazon member. I know that you can walk into a desi store, where, the door bell rings when you open the door and buy a Dosa mix. But then, being online is online.

BTW, I am not very choosy with food but while in the US, these things tend to get your taste buds, belligerent. Just mentioning this because the last posts were on food and you might end up thinking me as a Gadothgaja.

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Sania Mirza is the latest matinee idol. I don't say that. But having got more than 6 email forwards, just today alone, filled up with images of Sania Mirza, I accept. No pics of Sania in this post just to beat that.

Anyway, let's not have another Anna Kournikova in making.

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I don't frequent Sulekha anymore. Not like how I was hooked onto it four years back. Initially when I discovered Sulekha online in late 2000, it was a dream website to me. Then Sulekha was still growing and wasn't as big as now.

Until 2001, I didn't even know a word called Weblog existed on the internet. Then, Sulekha was my haunt. I went back again and again because Sulekha had writings of Indian Diaspora with whom I could relate to. It wasn't like a column nor it was like an email sent by a friend. Its writings were somewhere in-between and were truly classy. To think back, sub-consciously, Sulekha was a big inspiration for me to start blogging. I never wrote anything on Sulekha but admired the writings. Newshopper and Coffee house where the places of my interest. Newshopper had the best of Indian news items that never weren't headlines but were just good opinions.

These days Sulekha is cluttered and full of ads sprinkled. The good writing is lying there somewhere but then who has enough time to dig them out. Their weblogs section really needs a re-org desperately. To put it simply, they have just too many information on a single page and they are trying to sell them hard. A part of the right side is devoted to those gif advertisements which keep blinking at unexpected intervals and keep pestering click here...click here for those cheap $5 phone cards. Sulekha have grown over the period and probably this financial model is doing well for them. In this internet age of Weblog boom and neatly designed websites, they probably should also look into designing their site, uncluttered.

The point here is that, while googling for the Giggles bookstore, I came across this article, The Chennai Sojourn, written by Ranga Rangarajan. Yet another Sulekha gem. This, I believe this is a work of non-fiction though only the writer can say what percentage of fiction is involved. However, Rangarajan brings in front the contemporary Chennai that I see everyday. His observations finest and his detailing very vivid. As someone pointed out in the comments there is a sad undercurrent throughout the article but that only makes it a engrossing read. Do read.

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If Adam and Eve had been Chinese we'll all be in Paradise, because they would have ignored the apple and eaten the snake. A heady gag. Who else but Kamal Hassan cracking this during a chat about Mumbai Xpress. A good look at the pic in the link would make you guess a couple of things. Kamal as Avinasi would be a deaf and a wannabe US settler(note the USA emblem on his leather coat as he watches a plane fly high). More...

Hurray !! Just one more month for the Thiruvasakam in Symphony to release. Maestro Illayaraja will come back rocking. More...

Shahrukh 'stereotyped' Khan talks about lending his voice to the remake of The Incredibles as Hum Hain Lajawab in Hindi. This is however a great effort. More...

Goodbye Arthur Hailey. While a teenager, I was hugely inspired by his thrillers like Hotel and Wheels than the best selling Airport. We will miss you, forever. More...

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Have shifted to Total Choice Hosting service from Bloghosts. Bloghosts are closing for business and hence I had to switch to a new one. The guys at bloghosts were amazing and I didn't want to actually leave them.

TCH guys gave away a great deal for bloghosts customers of a free upgrade. So currently I am on a plan that gives more bandwidth and ample storage space. These guys also have great support. What more do I need to ask for.

Last evening, I switched the nameservers and so for sometime you must have been seeing older entries because my new site was backed up few days back itself. I have brought back the older enteries from the copies I had. The comments of the last four posts are missing. I know the previous post did have a good debate going on. In a day or two I will back up all the comments and put them as they were posted.

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I'm Back in Arnold's Terminator tone :

I'm Back from my mariage hungama and ready to dive into deepest corners of the internet. After a week long detachment from the internet, my emails are over-flowing with spam and lazygeek site looks very new to me. This is my longest break from the internet, ever.

Thanks to Kiruba and Ravages who made themselves available for my marriage reception. It took a while for me to recognize Kiruba and his wife. Only when I saw them with Ravages, I understood it was Kiruba. As Kiruba said, it was too tough to stand with that smile on your face for two long hours.

Thanks for all of you guys who wished me through all communication mediums including telepathy. I was enthralled to see so many well-known, known, unknown people wish me on my marriage page. Thanks again.

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All fellow bloggers, patrons, light readers and critically acclaimed critics of this blog are invited for my marriage reception on March 4th 2004 at Mylapore, Chennai. Here's more.

And now you know why I was lazy to scribble for the last couple of weeks. Don't you ?

On an another note, scribbles of a lazy geek ;-) just completed 2 years last week. Following The Hindu way, here is This Day That Age, my first blog post.

Monday, February 25, 2002

scribbled by lazy geek | 2:14 PM Your Comment Here [0]

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Strings, Euphoria and lil bit of Patriotism
(Title inspired by Chennai Blogger Meet 2004) :

On the republic day, the Open Air Theatre of IIT Madras took a hop for 3 hours. Strings, a guitar specialist band from Pakistan performed as a part of the Saarang 2004. Like Saiyoni fame Junoon ( not the DD megaserial), Strings have a distinct aura around them. Dhoor, their hit number was amazing. It takes a lot of attitude to perform in India on the republic day and these guys are definitely not short of that.

Then came running with the indian flag around him was 'Euphoria' Palash. Popularly known as Polly, this doctor-turned-pop artist, was with a white sleeveless banian and an unbuttoned shirt which seemed to fall off any time. From then for the next 2 hours he and his euphoric band kept the 8,000+ audience at their feet. So as he came running with the flag and started Jana Gana as the first song of the day, IIT rose up and stood unmoved. Polly continued to sing A.R Rahman's Vande Matharam. So did the crowd. We'll keep the argument surrounding A.R.R's Vande Matharam and patriotism to the next post. As you can imagine the decibel levels of thousands of collegers shouting at their alto voices, Vande Matharam. A spirit of patriotism swirled across us and it was a definite goose bumper.

While other bands keep singing their own compositions, Euphoria just bothers about keeping the audience happy. Their mantra is just hit numbers. Some interesting numbers they played includes Scorpion's With or Without You, Queen's We will Rock you, Bon Jovi's It's my life, Shankar Elson Loy's Dil Chahta Hai and ofcourse ARR's Dil Se Re.

With just a handful of albums and numerous hit within those albums, the future awaits Euphoria to create wonders. And they can really do it.

Observing Saarang :

a) Guys seemed totally geeky and girls, very freaky.

b) The Alpha and the Omega was found roaming around and I bumped over him on the second day.

c) I missed JAM finals in which I think Suds was also a jammer.

d) The Crossword show called Crossie seemed pretty much easier than I expected. Not that I crack crosswords with my left hand but I aint' bad also.

e) Hutch introduced the public mobile phone booth. So the hutch guy outside would be sitting with a mobile phone in his hand. If you want to make a call to your honey or to your nanny, you got to pick up the mobile and get into that mobilephone sized booth, talk and give it back to that hutch guy. Good Idea, wrong execution.

f) Radio Mirchi was trying to do something very different with a couple of RJs(Radio Jockey). It was fun to see the expression of RJs from a transparent booth where he/she was talking with that same FM supersonic speed.

g) A chap who was standing beside me during the Euphoria show was replying to SMSes with full swing. While Phalash started to sing It's my life, he was jumping heaven high and still typing sms in his mobile. I had no clue what was he trying to do. But thats the spirit of Saarang.

h) Finally, the sillier one. They sold pure mineral water with some added color and code named it as Pepsi for 15 bucks.

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An Ode to the networked world :
This poem ( can it be called as a poem ??) was written by me during a speaker's forum in my company . I had basically no big facts to harp on, so i thought of getting my point across by a small poem. Quite a few people say that is in the lines of a similar poem which floated in the net. I am oblivious to that . This is my CREATIVITY !!! you see .

An ode to the networked world

Gone are the days when played games on the road,
Today we code on the road with laptop.

Gone are the days when we stood to watch birds
Today we see and hear them in mpeg files.

Gone are the days when we sat to chat with friends on grounds,
Today we chat in rooms

Gone are the days when we carry watterbottles and chips to movies
Today we watch them in our e-PCs

Gone are the days when we sit back in our father's swinging chairs and read Alice in Wonderland
Today we purchase them for 1 dollar a chapter and read it from our monitors

Gone are the days when i write such poems in the last pages of my rough notebook
Today i type them in my notepad

Gone are the days when we have marriages for 3 days including baarath
Today we meet at baarat.com, wedding.com and reception.com

( A decade later )

Gone are the days when we have panel discussions in dinning halls
Today we meet using video conferencing in the virtual office.

( 50 years later)

Gone are the days when i used to meet people ...i mean real people...
Today i met my creator.... he was real..he was a human
and i am his creation ....I am a ROBOT.

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My friend quits celibacy:
He is a mad at Metallica. Crazy about Bryan Adams. We used to wonder who is gonna marry him including his ex-girl. the saying somewhere someone is born for you has become true. he is engaged to a girl whom he describes as one of the girls who make sense while talking. Hey, thats his opinion....not mine. He is excited about the whole stuff but this sets me thinking on grounds on psychology of a man who gets ditched for no mistake of him. Does the man think all girls are crazy ? Does he think all girls are useless? . Ram, Please answer!!!

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