What do you do when..

..you discover that some comments on your blog are really by the same person under different names?

Do you mark that person as spam, do you unapprove the comment and watch for the commenter again?

It’s rather tough to dismiss all the comments, cos after all, that person has taken time out to read your blog, maybe the comments there and posted their own.

Also, when your blog isnt kickin it at the top, the comments can indeed lure more viewers.

But, comments, and the posts - their authenticity, and uniqueness are what are best about a blog.

What to do then?

No new Post!

I just realised that I’ve not posted in a little over 3 months! Yikes! Where’s my creative juices, where have they been? What’s gotten into me?

well, for starters, it was the travel genie that bit me (more on it later). Then it was the flu virus, followed by lots of work - and then sickness of a dear one.

Whew! Now feeling slightly better - and hoping to post on all the above ones!

The iPhone, vulnerabilities and Software Design

According to Security Evaluators, the Apple iPhone has the ridiculous vulnerability of every major application accessing system with “Root” privileges. And they have already found an exploit with Safari, which lets them take complete control of the phone!

Wired reports :

“As long as everything runs as root, there are going to be bugs and people are going to find them (to take over the device),” says Charlie Miller, principal security analyst for Independent Security Evaluators, who, with colleagues, discovered the first reported bug with the iPhone earlier this year.

Wired’s headline reads “IPhone’s Security Rivals Windows 95“

If that doesnt scare you shitless, and away from it, I am not sure what would. I am wondering if I should just stick to relatively “normal” phones and avoid smartphones in the near future.

I am only surprised that this wasnt caught out at the software design phase itself! Just speaks volumes about our developers.

Blonddde

Once in a while my metro/retro/uber sexual gene hidden somewhere within me wakes up and prods me to do something interesting - a polite way of saying, it makes me goof up, and then repent at leisure, while everyone has a good laugh at it.

This time, at the salon, I was getting my hair trimmed, and then, for the umpteenth time when I was asked what kinda of a look I wanted, my eyes lit up. My brain cells fused, and I said “Make it short, but I want it coloured!”
Right. Coloured. colou-RED. you get the idea. So first, the nice people that they are, at the salon, handed me a folder with different coloured hair strands on them. There were probably something like 100 shades there, with half being blonde the rest being brunette/red. The differences were so scarce on that artificial hair, that i doubted if more than 3-4 shades existed in the range.

Still, the braveheart that I was, I took an appointment. “I’d like to get my hair coloured by Mr H at 4pm. Btw where’s my discount for introducing so many people to this place?” “we’ll give it on the colouring, sir!. Smart people them.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man - slightly late though! So, he again showed me them shades. “Streaks or full colouring?” “Streaks!” “Which colour do you think contrasts well with black - only blonde seems okay here?” and so on the convo went. Finally, settled for blonddde (pronounced blond-deh). After tousling up my hair a bit, the man returns with a cap. Nice cap, it looked like, but why would he want to use it…? And then the explanation - the strands will be drawn thru holes in it.

PLUCK! OUCH! “Did you just pull my hair off?” “Oh not to worry sir, while i’m pullin it thru the openings in the cap, it’ll pain a bit”. A bit, yes. Somewhat akin to the pain one would feel if their was being uprooted, in clumps. With all the plucking done, and my hair still there - much to my surprise and relief.

Short lived relief.

Seen cactus/cacti with black leaves or thorns? No? Well, that was what my head looked like. One extra large cactus, with the thorns all black (sooon to be blonde!) Its one of those times when God tells you “u cant look good, unless u go thru the process of looking ugly!” sigh.

And then, he applied whipped cream onto my hair. Here n there, here n there. Aint it funny that hydrogen peroxide looks EXACTLY like whipped cream? watch what you get with ur CCD/Barista coffees….
More whipped cream, and I was ready to be served up as a dish. For that I had to wait. First was the hair dryer. Round n round it went. Then it was followed by yet another cap. Topi pe topi, seemed like! What followed was a round under some mysterious machine. Well, my head was stuffed into it, and it apparently tried to heat it up - this thing thankfully happened fast enough!!

And finally after another wash, I was blondde-d for a couple of months.

You learn something new everyday!

Of late, I have kinda realised (again) why people say travel broadens your horizons. Having been rather stuck in Bangalore for the past two years or so, somehow the experience of the couple of years before that seemed to have gone a bit wishy washy, and diluted by our dear friend - Time.

And then, luckily, after a lot of begging, cajoling pleading and stuff, I was finally off to Tokyo! And boy, was the ride to there interesting. A hell lotta people told me it was hell. That if you are a veggie, like yours truly, its the pit of the fire in hell.

Thai Airways certainly made me feel that way. If there wasn’t enough apprehension about FOOD, they made sure, they fed(pun intended) the thoughts of starvation very well. The Thai Experience begs for another post, suffice to say, that the in-flight magazine is called “Sawasdee” - Thai for Namaste/Welcome - and the air crew made me feel anything but welcome.

Having travelled Thai all the way through, Japan, on hindsight should have been expected as a terrifying destination - but with the excitement of finally having gotten FAR, FAR away from India*, I didnt approach it with apprehension - more curiosity, I think.

And Japan, was one huge experience. It was humbling. It was entertaining, flattering (to deceive, occasionally), interesting - even humiliating a couple of times. On the whole, it was one awesome trip! The details of course will come up later - this post is about learning!

One of the first experiences in Japan, was getting out of our service apartment and searching for a department store - they call the smaller shops as “convenience store” (and pronounce it as conBenience store - like ‘em Bongs)

So we stopped a guy - and, he didnt know English. We were soon to learn that most people dont understand a word in English, not even Yes/No sometimes. We tried communicating in various ways until he realised we wanted a conbenience store - and we realised it was a convenience store. So the guy tried to direct us, and having failed to communicate, walked us, ALL the way to the store - asked if it was what we wanted, and bowed and went on his merry way! (The store wasnt really far, but still, a huge gesture!)

That was our first really opening to the Japanese world. Be helpful and polite! Boy!

2 days later, we got lost on the way to office. And we sought the help of this lady who happened to walk past. She spent something like 15 minutes trying to help us out - that we were lost got communicated easily, but not the directions to our place! heh! Finally, I happened to dig out the card of our Japanese colleague - and the lady called him up, got him to speak to us, made sure everything was alright and we would be taken care of (the Japanese colleague was coming to pick us up) and finally left - even apologised for not knowing english well!

It just blew our minds. There we were, strangers in the land, speaking strange lingo, and to face such politeness and courtesy! Damn! Oh oops!

Was a great lesson to me in being humble and helpful!

EEEE! 535 words…. looong post. I shall post the next thing I learnt in Japan later.

* I REALLLY LOVE MY COUNTRY, BUT I REALLLY LOVE TO TRAVEL TOO!

Yella okay, BREAK UP Yaake?

So, what do you say to a pal when you tell him that you’re carefree and single – and have been for a couple of weeks – and he goes “WHY, man?” . A shrug, which prompted a bigger, louder “WHHYYY, maaan?”

You get the headline now?

Just too much oral sex dude. I needed another, you know? (no, didn’t say that.. wasn’t far off my thoughts though)

Something on the lines of maybe

“Oh pappe pyaar karke pachtaaaya” (he’s a tamilian. And might just not get it).

By the by, love the humour in the song. Boy, such wit.

Maybe drown into some sad poetry or shaayari – talk of broken hearts, mangled dreams, rusted emotions?

(the truth, as usual resides somewhere in between – like water somehow flows into, or hides even, in a crack eh?)

 

Ah bloody hell, why do people wanna know anyway? Its not like people ask you “WHY?” when you tell them you’re with someone (short of marriage anyways).

Its not like I am an open book – am a rather private person on certain things – and well relationships are as private as one can get. And questions are best avoided, especially when I haven’t opened up on the topic myself.

Kinda like the response of another pal way better – “yeno nindu golu?” (“why do you always land up in shit?” or “yeh tera kya jhamela hai yaar?”) – he also uses the same line when I get together with someone new too, though.

Some of my other friends seem to have the rather opposite problem – I kinda almost end up talking too much – they’d give their hands n legs to shut me up. and I’d gladly shut up if some of them wud do that.. heh – such good friends we are..

(sorry, kingfisher, Uppi saar. I’ll change that headline later, honest!)

Google News and NDTV - and blogs

Is it just me or is G-news getting worse by the day? During the US Open, it scarcely showed any tennis related newsitems to me - despite me having racked up a history of searching tennis stuff on Google.

And then, it comes up with howlers like these:

“Yuvraj, self before nation?“

Lest you start wondering what its all about, its a stupid BLOG on NDTV by some NDTV reader/user. Sweet eh? Some rather brainy guy(or gal even) writes some shit - and google picks it up - so much for it editing the feeds! But, but, it doesnt feature the correct Cricket or Tennis information!

Living on the run…

driving in the sun, lookin out for number 1… India here we come…right back where we started from.

Homecoming sounds sweet, bittersweet, tenuous, bloody gud. Waiting to come there, come right up there.

I cant comment there anymore!!

Where? Here! At the wordpress info bloggie. What happened? I used to love commenting on that blog!

Oh and by the by… a great feature in word count. As the post said - there are times when I think a post is too long, but still cant trim it, or too short and still cant add anything more to it - without spoiling it.

Sometimes I just junk it.

Are you..

a die hard romantic, if you love watching movies that take a very optimistic, simple view of life. If you love the flowers, the colours they, the sky, the earth bring - nature brings, would that make you a romantic? Are you a romantic if love blossoms where perhaps all else fails?  When things gladden your heart - for sometimes no reason at all - a beautiful face, a cossetted journey, a crinkled smile. and if the same heart turns blue for perhaps no reason at all - or maybe because its trying to find a reason to smile. wat are you… life’s little musings?