Food doesn’t need 1000 words

ImageFood doesn’t need a story, say for how it’s made. Well in this case this goes long back, from where the original ingredients come from, the farms and well, slaughter houses. While I’m not the the insta-fooder (if you get what I mean) you find these days, I do share some posts on good meals in the ‘food’ tag here.

What these guys are making sure does look delicious already. Though I do appreciate good food (who doesn’t?) I don’t consider myself a foodie or anything, and well I’m hungry all the time.

Dragonborn

Vampires or Werewolves, never been so fascinating as Dragons for me. In my imagination always wanted to be a Dragon. There are some cool such individuals in The Witcher universe though I wouldn’t want to spoil anything in case you decide to check it out (which you totally should) 🙂

Though this track is from a different game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which serves like one of my life tracks. 😀

Smartphones: blessing or curse?

I read this article by The Verge author Paul Miller, who’ll tell you it’s not the internet that’s ruining us, we’re our own worst enemies. Miller recently came back to the internet after one year of self-imposed exile: no email, no Twitter, no Facebook, no Google Maps, period. Many would claim such a thing is impossible in today’s age. yet they forget or rather mostly don’t know that despite a steady growth only 2.4 billion people use or have access to the internet as of June 2012 out of the 7 billion population of our planet.

38306644Now here I would specifically want to talk about the so called ‘smartphones’ era, whether they are a blessing to us, or a curse, though a lot other aspects of technology especially relate to this and play a major role too. I really enjoyed reading Miller’s piece, he describing his endeavors in the ‘free real world’, and his ending with his conversation with his 5 year old niece, who didn’t knew what ‘the internet’ itself was but knew everything about Skype due to it being always used and though her uncle simply didn’t want to talk to her, not questioning his absence of conversation. That really got to me too. Children of this generation pick up things so fast, they are ‘born’ with the (so called) modern world of ours.

My mobile phone

And hey, if someone paid me for something like this, I would drop everything and do it! It’s not just the money but would be a very welcome different thing to do. Though the money helps too. 😛 But I personally would like to tell you it might be a big thing at start, but as does everything, eventually you get used to it, however troublesome it is. I lived some weeks without internet, and months all together without a laptop or phone, let alone a ‘smart’ phone. I remember over 2 years ago, plotting and begging my parents to get me a new computer, after which it was rewarding in getting my first Alienware laptop, and I got my first ‘smart’ phone, rather a new phone after over 3 years of using spares of my parents, my ex, my friends and colleagues and remaining without one or no means of contact (except the internet) for months. It was a real pain, I feel I had been through hell at such times. But amusingly it was fun in a strange way too. I spend a lot of hours in front of my laptop, but the first one to jump out at the notice of anything. My parents are still surprised why I’m not blind yet though. Also I barely use my phone, I don’t find myself comfortable in this chatting and clicking everything you eat and shit which people indulge in these days.

So in short, answering is a ‘smart’ phone a blessing or a curse?: It’s very much a blessing indeed. Made lot of things convenient for me personally and otherwise. But remember, contrary to popular belief, marketing and propaganda by the corps bent on ruling over the world, your phone is NOT an extension of YOU. You are what you, around you and your life is about. I don’t even keep my phone beside me when I go to sleep, I keep a notebook and a pen instead to write down anything worth remembering which would strike. Though I haven’t been able to write down anything worthwhile so far, it’s still a start. You ought to do the same, that’s one very useful tip I got from WordPress. 🙂

Top Picks

Alright I haven’t done something like this before and there is always a first time so, I need your help, the readers across the realm of the internet this time. A direct interaction with the virtual citizens of the internet. Well sort of. Help me writing my next post, and well get to know a bit more about you (whoever you maybe). 😀

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Thank you for your response. ✨

A Manner of Speaking

Well I don’t know what much to say for this, since I don’t particular have a pattern which can be noticed or mimicked. Though I tend to speak fast and before I used to stammer a lot, for which the insignificant species still at times ridicule me for it but now things are much better. Well I don’t know whether I’ll have to boast about my vast vocabulary or hipster nature, but I use words like ‘godspeed’ and phrases like ‘back in the day’ a lot which is quite prominent. The former mainly came from The Witcher franchise of games, which is my most favourite and one of the best there is, see my review of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings here. While the latter is, well more of a self made thing (origin unknown) which is a favourite of the likes of some I know.

Movies are not the Monsters

People are.

A common, very misguided question in belief is Does watching violent movies inspire violence in the real world? Now this also extends to video games, believed to make children/adults violent, and even others like books on such topics (which are labeled controversial)

Now how I find this personally is, absolutely ridiculous. Sure movies and other such media play a big role in our lives varying from different scenarios, and one can always argue that if these can provide some sort of inspiration in the positive light, at the same time it can also negatively influence a person. While that is very true, but often in most cases, it’s deemed as movies themselves are the root cause of the problem? Which leads to ask me – are you a fucking retard?

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Let’s say a violent movie is the root cause of the problem. In that case, if I may compare it to a recent problem regarding gun regulation, it was the fault of the gun manufacturer and the gun itself, an inanimate object, but not the person who actually pulled the trigger right? The gun attracted and seduced the person to get it and pull the trigger resulting in killing or whatever hell they did?

timthumb.php.jpgHeck why guns? Let’s take something which is found in almost every household, a kitchen knife. That which is used to prepare food and also result in a gruesome injury and possibly death, so every person who has a knife in his house must be quarantined because of possessing a potential murder weapon.

Now doesn’t all this above sound ridiculous? Then why does the same thing in the context of movies and this culture becomes something worth of discussing? Just because your pathetic mind is incompetent of comprehending what all this is about? And by you, I meant all those idiotic people so called politicians, ministers and ‘law makers’ (more like self pissers) and those people who share this thinking. What a pathetic mindset.

Movies like others are a form of art, and is the biggest way how the ‘artists’ connect with the people. For many it’s a way of life. They are just a representation of our real world with a mix of the powerful imagination of creative minds. What happens in many movies are actually in a way what happens in our real world! Let’s say, we lived in a utopia, free of violence, crime, corruption and suffering. There is only peace and harmony. Only all the possible good in the world. How drastically different the world would be? But do you think in that case movies or anything else won’t be made, because there is ‘nothing’ to talk or show about? That’s where you are wrong. Even if we lived in a so called perfect world, there would be minds who would think of all the present existing evil there is. In that scenario, that would be their fiction. Just like we have countless of our own – medieval, fantasy, magic, sci-fi, et cetera to name a few.

The shooting last year around the time of release of The Dark Knight Rises was very tragic. Many (fools) instantly jumped on the issue claiming for the dark movies to be the cause of it, making the lunatic who was later found to possess an arsenal of dangerous weapons to do it, resulting in lot of pain and death. The movie or a character which was creating and existing for over 70 years since  1939 wasn’t the problem, the problem was with that guy who needed medical attention and good parenting. And some brains if I might add.

There are enough problems which actually need solving in our planet, so why not spend our time and energy towards them instead of fulfilling someone else’s agenda without any rational thinking, shall we?

Person, Place, Thing

This writing challenge reminds of an old pen and paper game which I used to play back in the day when I was a kid. It was simply called name, place, animal, thing (yeah I know, if you too noticed, the absence of the conjunction and always bothered me too, but maybe that was just me). As far as I know it was widely popular here played by many kids, the objective simply was at a given random letter each had to write down name of a person, a place, an animal and a thing beginning with that letter and as the game went on, the person scoring most points based on being the first, uniqueness of what he/she wrote, et cetera. Here I’m going to break the established order which I always do, and going to talk about a place which I already mentioned here before, a local cafe and juice bar – Fizzy.

I already wrote a small dedicated post about it here on Local Flavor, and going to add a bit more on it. As I’ve already mentioned, I’m coming here since the first day it opened all those years ago. I remember being in 6th grade then. I go there almost everyday when, and even today evening had my regular cold cappuccino. The place has a pretty neat open ambiance with a cross road in front of it and a (girls) school directly at the opposite. My school (which was a boys school) was also nearby, so you might get the picture where I’m getting at. 😉 And not to mention one of the biggest residential areas among others nearby. Suffice to say they are doing well. Popular hang out places for couples, friends and lonely buggers (like me). Heck there was a significant ‘No PDA‘ board too but I’m not going to go there. 😛

ImageComing to which, perhaps the most iconic thing served, from it’s various juices and sodas, frankies, grilled sandwiches, pastries and others, is my most favourite cold cappuccino. Have been drinking that for nearly a decade now! If you look at it, it’s nothing extraordinary, just a regular cold coffee with a touch of chocolate powder sprinkled. But after having been taking it for such a long time, don’t think even the very dam expensive ones like Starbucks or others can beat it to the top. Just another example of simplicity being #1. Well, just one thing, there was a time when it was mere ₹ 12 and including vanilla or chocolate ice-cream was ₹ 20-25. Today the coffee alone is just ₹ 25, add 20 more for any ice-cream. Ah I miss those days, casually having cold coffee with a favourite ball of ice-cream.

Coming to the person, here I would make it people, as I don’t know anyone singular in particular to write about, unless of course that person is me which I don’t want to bore you with. The place is all about people meeting and having a good time, so perhaps a nod to everyone I spent time there. Specially the staff there, who now in these few years adorn a red t-shirt show casing their employers. Or rather employer, since the place as far as I know started by one guy, who knows me very well now of course, and turned out to be a family friend of one of my old friends. From a small shop now a large happening cafe and 4 more branches in that area of the city, truly a success. Not only money wise but making memories for countless people as well, this is a place merged with my own history.

Words and Space

So this was a challenge to play with space,
      Here I’m writing this poem trying to meddle with some words,
               In a pathetic attempt, to make some text sound nice.
                        But what I don’t get, why does it matter if it doesn’t rhyme?

                              My grandfather was a poet, and so was I
                        Atleast that’s what I thought, many years ago
                But as time went by, I just realized
        Nothing more than a few lame words
Calling it poetry as an alibi.

    I don’t know why I’m even writing this
          I’ve got lot of work to do and lack of imagination
              Yet I’m just sitting here passing time
                   Maybe I feel the need to write something not making sense
                       But ain’t I do that always?

                             So here I’m just messing around with the editor
                          Mashing some buttons begging me not to
                    I feel the need to write one more line
               Or maybe it’s just I just want this to look
          A DNA of drunken words
     Need to work harder for time doesn’t wait
But heck I’ll do what I want anyways.

Iconic about Bombay

If there is one thing that’s truly iconic about Mumbai Bombay it is the king of food of the city – Vada Pav. Read the wiki article for some history about it, which surprisingly people here too don’t know despite consuming it for years. Known as the burger of Bombay, being the most notable street food and cheap that many to all can afford (and one of the many reasons for my poach that is). You can’t miss it if you’re in the city.

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It’s not the exotic locations, facilities, beautiful ladies or even the so called spirit of Mumbai, but it’s really Vada Pav the heart of the city, the icon. And for being there with the lonely me and my tummy 😛