RIP Steve Jobs

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. - Apple Inc. I have to admit, I used to hate Steve Jobs. After a thousand 'Jobs Vs. Gates' arguments with my buddies, a million articles about Steve Jobs and his history around the internet which never once talked only about positive side, A Day of 'Pirates of the Silicon Valley' movie which also really didn't portray him half as a so-called nice guy, and almost 3 years into using Apple products, here I am saddened for the loss of a man who millions of us truly admire. I guess the biggest problem for me in admitting him as a great one, was that Steve Jobs was not a technology geek, he did not know how to code, he doesn't know if the algorithm is optimal, but It took me some time to realize that was actually part of his greatness. I remember not even bothering to see the Apple keynotes when the IT guy in my company downloads it and places it in a network share for many events. And after seeing typical videos on youtube titled "How to present like Steve Jobs", I watched the first keynote, I did complain Apple were exaggerating their products and features at first, But I NEVER missed any Apple event after that. It was only because of Steve Jobs. RIP Steve Jobs. We will miss you for the years to come and remember you forever.

6 ways to respond to people who point out that you are losing hair

The author is not responsible if people remove you from their facebook friends list (or) start hate clubs for you, after following this guide. I have used * symbol all over the article, please imagine your favorite swear word there while reading. Thank you.

I don't know about you, but its one of the most pissing off moments in your life when people point out that you have thin hair. Especially the cursed ones like me, who are blessed to eternally have right amount of thin hair, so that the thinness is visible only when your hair is wet and you are standing under bright sun. Even people who are actually bald will not go through these worst confrontations. Nothing is more irritating than a guy exclaiming amidst a crowd of friends pointing at your hair, and screaming - "Duude ! Everything is visible mann !!". Seriously guys, do you really think, the guy who you are pointing at, doesn't know it. Its his *head dammit.

So coming to the post. Here are some ways to respond to people who point out that you are losing hair.

1. "Thank you.. (Look at the person with gratefulness in your eyes and face and after a pause say) Christopher *Columbus!"

2. Some people have a different way to start this. "Is you father bald?" (Now even though you know exactly why he is asking this, just keep a curious face and ask 'why' was he asking that). "No, its just that you have thin hair, so if your dad is bald, you will go bald too" (Great find Sherlock! With a sarcastic puzzled look) Oh really ?!, then... Your Dad used to be gay too ?"

3."Thats Ok. At least unlike you, I still have my brain left."

"Looks like you are losing hair"

4. Sometimes even old guys who are almost completely bald will try it on you. To them you could say  - "Yeah.. It should be awesome being you! you don't have anything left to lose"

5.Yeah no worries, its just the autumn season. It'll be back in spring. (Then if he looks at you with a confused look, give a horror stare and ask - "YOURS DOESN'T ?!!", who knows he might even get scared!).

6. Thanks for finding that out man! I had no *idea. Can you give me money so I can buy a non-bald-proof mirror? please?

I would really like to add more to this list. Please contribute in the comments :)

I told you not to tell everyone

Mar 17 - 4:55 PM
(An SMS from an unknown number)

Mar 19 - 9:23 PM
Me: Who is this?

Mar 19 - 9:32 PM
Unknown: XXXX (Says his name)

Mar 19 - 9:34 PM
Me: I guess this must be your new number.

Mar 19 - 9:38 PM
Friend: Yeah, I threw that old sim of mine as I got too many wrong calls from too many girls :)

Mar 19 - 9:51 PM
Me: I told you not to tell everyone that you went to school with me. But you didn't listen :)

Mar 19 - 10:06 PM
Friend: Haha :) :) good one mate :)

The last set

The arena was filled with a sudden silence. It was just announced that he will break his own record. The hundreds of thousands of audience comprising of men, women and children were personally shaken by this decision of their champion. Though the crowd was mixed, the event manager knew that women formed the majority of the crowd. At a far end of the arena, a group of people lit candles to pray for their favorite hero to win this historic event. Infinite banners were held by the faithful fans hoping the camera would catch a glimpse of it anytime. Cameras kept looping through some of the interesting ones.

"WE LOVE YOU. PLEASE MARRY ME AND MY SISTERS!" said a banner held by a group of 5 ultra hot Quintuplets sisters with the center one dressed in Princess Leia's costume in Star Wars. All the others sisters were dressed identically in a slightly slutty futuristic costume. They jumped in joy when they saw themselves on the big screen. The other screen switched to a camera pointed at their hero looking at the girls on the big screen and smiling. He winked his eyes and gave them a flying kiss. The roaring audience cheered for it, setting a new record of decibel level in the arena recorded by any past event, amidst the annoying vuvuzelas which never stopped.

The Bell rang thrice and a blanket of silence crept over the arena again. All the cameras pointed at him, at the center of the arena inside the ring. The commentators were raising the heat of the situation asking critical questions like - "Will he disappoint his faithful fans by failing this attempt to break his own previous record ?", "Is he going to loose his fan given title of 'EVER WINNING WONDERMAN' by the FFFUUs (Female Fan Federation of United Uruguay) ? All of this will be answered in the next one minute." paused the commentator.

ONE.... yelled the show host on the ring who stood near him as he took the first step towards eternal glory. The audience cheered over the arena following his voice on the speakers.

TWO... Another round of cheers along with claps heard all over the arena. The audience cheered and clapped like they swore to cheer louder than their previous one each time.

One by one the count kept increasing THREEEE, FOURRRR, FIIIVVE, SIXXX.... SEVVVEN and by the time he reached EIGHT, the audience cheering sound level raised even more, that it almost shattered every glass present in the place. With just two more to go, when he made the attempt for NINE, he just paused half way and the whole crowd went .. "Ohhhhhhhh!" and he stopped there in mid air unable to complete nor give up THE NINTH step. Horror crept upon everyone's face in the arena including the commentators who were left speechless. If you were there, you would have thought you suddenly went deaf. And then a little boy jumped over the security towards the commentators and yelled in their Mic - "Youuuuu Can Doooo Itttt......Pleaseeee Don't give uppppp!" One by one the audience started to shout and in a matter of seconds all of them yelled in a chorus "You Can do it", "You Can do it".... and it went on..

Then the miracle happened, he, in the center of the ring on the stage, started to move, and the crowd started to increase their tempo "You can do it", "You can do it" faster and faster. And then Bang... he reached NINE and for another quick one and TEN!!!!!

"This is unbelievable, history has been rewritten today and we are all extremely thankful for being a part of it and witnessing it" - the commentator went on the Mic. The crowd went on like they can never get tired. Camera showed a bunch of girls who even flashed themselves on the event of this epic moment revealing his name tattooed all over them.

And then I open my eyes completing my extra set of crunches, coming to the real world surrounded by guys working out with full focus like no one else even existed in the gym apart from them. I get up and say good bye to the instructor and get out.

Its one month since I joined the Gym :P

When in pain, don't talk to anyone about it !

Disclaimer :- I hate being an 'Emo' on the internet. In fact I hate being even the slightest percent of 'Emo' anywhere. Probably I'm the most wrongly inspired person of the character 'Dr.Cox' from Scrubs. I recently realized I'm subconsciously obsessed about becoming like him. 'Subconsciously' because, I realized it only after I noticed a great change in my character in a while and ended up self examining. Nuff said, So this is NOT me cribbing about my problems or tragedies in life. My life rocks, period. This is just some kind of experimenting with my mind I would like to call :)

It is generally said that you should share your pain. When you feel life is being unfair or when you have problems, you are advised to talk to friends, parents about it. It is told that way because, you would feel your burden reducing when you talk about it and when a person listens patiently and empathizes with you.

I have mostly been blessed with at least one trust worthy soul most of the times, in many different times in life. So the cycle goes like this. Often I face an unfair situation in life. I get all angry about it and think about how to change it and plan to take some steps. Sometimes these incidents have led to important changes in thought processes, decision making, habits etc. over the years as a gradual change. But none of them have had an instant noteworthy impact. If you don't know what I am talking about, I am talking about something 'slightly similar' to (and a 'lot different') Mark Zuckerberg making Facemash.com immediately after his girlfriend dumped him. (The Social Network Movie)

The immediate impact, like I said was missing in my life because, I always talked about it to one of my friends who luckily would hear it out and make me feel better, thus reducing my motivation born out of anger born out of unfair situation which I faced.

So this time I decided not to talk to anyone about it. The flames, surprisingly are growing bigger. Its a little hard to overcome the urge to talk about it, which is very evident from the fact that I made this blog post (:P). Still, I think I see the motivation not fading away, pushing me to take steps to reach a place to put an end to the unfairness faced, instead just talking about it and not taking any significant steps.

Would like to quote lines from 'Rang De Basanti' by DJ character
'There are only two ways to live life: Tolerate things the way they are... Or, take responsibility to change them'

Azhagiya Tamil Magan - Shortest Movie Review

First one hour fifteen minutes I was occasionally saying to myself - "Oh my god, SHE is killing me with her looks and expressions".

The next fifteen minutes I found myself saying almost the same sentence - "Oh my god, he IS killing me with his looks and expressions"

I Switched it off after that.
I don't think I will be able to bear the next half of the movie.

P.S. Please read my new label 'YoSuck Vijay' the same way you read 'Joseph Vijay' - his original name

What Is Your Earliest Human Memory ?

My earliest memory is when I was a toddler, I was crawling in the kitchen of my grand mother's house towards a hot cooker kept on the floor. I also have faint memories of getting burnt on my thighs on it. I wish I remembered the face of my grand mother. People say she loved me more than anybody in the world. Showered me with attention, Ignoring the whole house and cooking only the food I loved - Kesari with lots of Cashews and Ghee they say, I loved the ones she made. She always had the ingredients ready, they say, in case I dropped in with my mom or dad as a surprise visit. Unfortunately she passed away before I could walk properly.

I grew up watching the neighboring kid and my then classmate getting all the special attention, love and care from his grand mother, who never let him down, even when made mistakes. Probably she wanted to show me that all the marks I scored better than him (in fact all others, yes I used to be the 1st rank kid) and the prizes I won at school for competitions, and being the famous kid, none of them made up for what I was missing.

Another notable memory I remember is in my childhood house, while sitting in the kitchen entrance again (ahem.. OK, its coincidence, really! :P) and watching my mom make food and acting like doing the homework, while all I did was watch my little baby sister. I turned away from her and turned back again to see her trying to roll over for the first time in life. She was half way through and I started to jump and yell running around her cheering her to do it, while my mom stood watching her along with me. After a few nail biting seconds, she finally rolled over. It was such a cute sight to watch the cutest baby girl** in town roll over for the first time. I was so happy like I achieved something great, and I guess I went up to each and every one in school including my poor school teachers telling how amazingly my little sister rolled over. Everyone I remember, gave that trademark smile which means "OK Kid, STFU and get the hell out of here instead of dramatizing your boring story" in their mind, but instead they would say "Oh really.. that's very nice" to not disappoint me and quickly walk away. There are times I wished that me and my sister didn't have that 6 years age difference, which if it was lesser could have may be bonded us better ? These are moments that make me realize how lucky I have been.

**(My sister was very cute as a baby, in fact like the ones you see in forwarded mails, fair and chubby with round eyes, while I was nothing short of the scary fugly babies that appear in Horror movies and Doom 3, I can post photos as evidence soon)

Thanks to Tumblr Bot for asking this question. Sorry for betraying Tumblr and posting answer to this on Blogger :)

Good Fiction - An attempt

He glanced through the corner gap of his green curtained window at the big 'dot like' red light on top of a distant mobile phone signal tower. What if that was a sniper's laser beam ? He thought to himself and smiled at his own insanity. There were sprinkled pieces of cake littered from a empty packet near the mouse. He held the mouse and did a right click.The speakers played some music with soft beats. His dark face was lit with bright white light from the LCD monitor. There was only text on it.

'Thud !!' a loud bang was heard at the window glass. He thought he saw a quick shadow. Panic clung tightly on to his veins. He slowly rose from his chair. There was no sound except for the music and the fan. He lowered the volume. As he looked down and he froze out of fear at the mysterious black area on the visible area of the window glass. He took a few seconds to regain strength. In normal situations he would usually run out of his room and wake up his flat mates. But now that they were out of town, he was all by himself. Slowly he took out his mobile phone and turned on the torch on it and directed the beam from the floor slowly towards it.

'Screw it'- I am never going to write good fiction, he thought to himself as he opened his eyes unable to continue his imagination. I am posting this to my blog titled - 'Good fiction - An attempt', no matter what, he said to himself.

Are you your own Doppelganger ?

Sometimes in life, you really believe in something, even though you have absolutely nothing to back it up with. No logical reasons, or no reasons at all about why you believe in it. Sometimes you are right, and you become a local superhero, a film star, a business giant or a highly successful person. But when it goes wrong, you have 2 choices. You could just let it go, probably blame something else for it and forget it. Or you could treasure that moment, that priceless moment, where you realize how stupid you actually were, and finally learn a life lesson, make a note to remember it throughout your life to become 'A Better Person'.

It could be a career path you took, a relationship choice you made or anything that could influence your life a lot. The important thing to realize is that you should always feel happy for it. Whether you win or loose, you should always remember that you had the guts to take that risk, rather than always staying at the safe zone, playing easy like most others do. Quoting one of my favorite dialogues from Scrubs -

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about taking chances, and how it’s really just about overcoming your fears. Because the truth is, everytime you take a big risk in your life, no matter how it ends up, you’re always glad you took it. ”- John Dorian, Scrubs. (Source)

I used to wonder about things like purpose of life and measure of success. I finally realize there is no answer to those questions. We all are born in different places, to different parents, surrounded by different people, brought up in different ways. I realize its not fair at all to compare people and their lives. So what exactly is the purpose of life ?

In spite of whether you get success or failure due to a risk taken in life, the important thing to realize is that you always win something priceless, something which cannot be acquired by any other means. And that magic element is 'Experience'. It is this experience that make you better, that completely changes you and completes every missing jigsaw piece of the puzzle of life. I'm starting to think that the most happiest people are the ones with the most variety of experiences in life, the ones who were able to take risks, enjoy its success, withstand the failures caused by it and persevere by taking more of them.

Once a great man told me, you need to experience pain to appreciate pleasure. Unless you have one, you are not going to appreciate and enjoy the other. So don't worry about risk and failures. Now look back and think about how you were 5 years ago. Do you see radical changes in you, in your outlook about life and people. Have you learnt a lot more, about things that can be learnt only by Experience ? Have you become your own Doppelganger in the few years? If yes, your life rocks, if you don't think so, you will realize it soon. If no, then you better start realizing that you are wasting your life. By staying on the shore, instead of cruising through the storms, missing the excitement and experience.

Post inspired by Ted's dialogue in the latest episode of How I Met Your Mother - Doppelgangers.

P.S. - I know I used to abuse people who use tough words in their blog posts :P. I just don't like it when there is a simpler way to do it. I learn t the word Doppelganger recently. My understanding of the word is 'someone who looks very much like you, but is a completely different person'. Its something more than just a lookalike.

P.P.S. - People who are seeing stars after reading the whole thing, I'm sorry. The point of the post, is that there is no point to run behind success, fame, money etc. instead try to enjoy every aspect of life and to experience the variety of life.

How did she ever get in those clothes ?

This is a very very old post. But it was published only in the blog running in my mindosphere. Many things have changed since those days, me, my thoughts, my outlook on life, culture and relationships. But still, this might be interesting for a few of you. Moreover I was reminded of this incident when I saw my label 'Winning Arguments' on the side bar.

Time was about 6.30 and it was a normal evening in September 2007. Jencil and I were on a stroll. I saw a girl on the road walking in the opposite direction. Boy, she wore a tight dress. So much tight that out of all the odds, the first thought that ran in MY mind on that sight was 'How did she ever get in those clothes ?' She was definitely uncomfortable, but she sure was enjoying all the attention she received from everyone on the road. I am sure no one looked at her face, not at least at the first glance.

"Ithellam konjam overa iruku da" (this is way too much) - I spoke. Jencil immediately turned towards me, and said - "Why too much? Its her freedom and choice. When guys build their body by going to gym don't they wear tight clothes to show off and walk around ?" I listened patiently to some more things he added to prove that I'm wrong. Then I said - "Ok Machi, let us say you build your body like Hrithik Roshan, (Sorry Hrithik Roshan wherever you are)... and wear tight clothes on the road. And someone commented a 'little loudly' that you had an attractive body and you heard it. What would you do then ?" Very happily without even thinking he replied - "Definitely I will thank, wave my shoulders and raise my collar". Then I continued - "Ok, let us say you are married and your 'awesome' wife walks with such clothes and someone on the road comments that her body is very sexy a little loudly that you and some more people on the road happen to hear it". "Appavum collar raise pannivittu thanks solluviya machan?" (Even then will you raise your collar and say thanks ?)

I couldn't hear any reply. When I turned around, My friend Jencil was missing for a moment, the person standing in his place was Mr.Jencil - The Toothpaste Ad Model. "Sorry, I acknowledge I was a bl00dy hypocrite" is what I heard even though he didn't speak.

Please don't judge me based on this post. I believe if you support something, that applies to you too.