Love. Hope. Agony.
One way crushes are probably the most agonizing of things ever experienced by man (and woman). Literally everything that happens to you that is remotely connected to her/him, it is blown out of proportion in your head heart. The number of hours you have wasted on this pointless imaginary romance – which finally actually got nowhere – you wish you somehow get those lost school years back. OK, college years too. OK may be some of your work years as well.
In this piece continuing my series of The Occasional Doodle, I am effectively writing down something almost every guy goes through at least ONCE. 
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I just noticed that several of my Thoughts in 2D and The Occasional Doodle have a lot to do with relationships. I wonder what to make of that.
New photoblog, new subscription
I finally launched my new photoblog, The Matte Finish. Right now, it has only five photos, but newer photos will be coming soon! I hope you like them as much as I do, because I really dig photography. In the coming months there are going to be cosmetic changes to the photoblog, but the photos will hopefully, still be coming!
Meanwhile, there have been a few changes in subscription of content. I have moved to using Feedburner and now there are three feeds, of which you need to pick only one, based on what you want to read! I have moved my blog feed too, to Feedburner. I urge you to update your current readers with these new feeds, because in the future, if I ever need to change my website address, the feeds will not need to change!
Merged Feed – Combined feed for both my blog and photoblog
Just my blog – Mostly Pointless (new feedburner address)
Just my photoblog – The Matte Finish (new feedburner address)
There is a whole new page – Subscribe – dedicated to providing all this information.
Relationships and distance
Disclaimer: I think I speak for *almost* everyone when I show this. Note the use of the word ‘almost’ within asterisks. Also, I don’t mean to be mean! People, please don’t hate me for this – it’s meant to tickle your brain. To first make you laugh, then make you think. If you lie in that peak region, do let us know! 
It will help the whole world in general.
More from Thoughts in 2D: making simple things look geeky. That kind of rhymes.
Pigs don’t have it easy
After the reverberating (cough) response following the coverage of The sinking of Hawaii, Doofus Maximus appears again – only this time, he has an animal’s point of view. A pig. About how they do not have it easy in this cold cruel world of humans. Now with swine flu, they hate it that their already tarnished image is being given a shot. Doofus Maximus reporting, for comic relief only.
Pigs want their oink to be heard
1st May 2009
Lasve GasBy correspondent Dewfus Maksimus
Pigs have not had it easy for a long long time. They have been the butt of jokes and stereotypes of the human race for as long as they can remember. In the recently held swine conference held in Lasve Gas, the primary focus of the meeting was to bring together pigs from around the world to discuss how to renew their failed image among the human race. Iffaifaart Yudai, their chief spokespig expressed great hope amidst deep concern -
“Ah all you swine, let our minds entwine, we need to draw the line, and recreate an image so fine, that humans see us shine, and treat us with respect as they dine!“.Pigs are not happy with several expressions from around the world in different languages – “eat/smell like a pig“, “this place is like a pigsty“, “son of swine” etc. The last one, they say, was spoken out with deep passion in an Indian movie – Sholay (suar ke bachchon), and thereafter, most of this country’s citizens used it as a calling that lacked affection. And now, pigs feel that ‘swine flu’ is going to cause their popularity charts to plummet further. The spokespig added that humans are going to hate pigs more.
“We have a poink to make. It’s not fair you know, they get the flu too! So why can’t we? If they get flu, they get the flu shot. If we get flu, we get shot.”
They are indeed pushing for the renaming of the virus strain to H1N1, so that the general morale of pigs stays higher.This event was originally organized by the GRaceful Union against Negative Treatment (GRUNT), but they were disgruntled that GRUNT did not quite reach human ears. Humans ignored it as a mere grunt. Then the management gurus advised them to change their name to Oppression and Insensitivity are Not Kool (OINK) but that failed to make a point poink as well. “We thought, at least by spelling ‘cool’ as ‘kool’ is going to get some attention!“, Mr. Yudai was heard saying.
Finally they conducted surveys among humans, the most common reply received was “Pigs forming an organization? Pffft! Yeah, and pigs can fly!” Taking the hint from the overwhelmingly common response, the organization was then renamed to PFFFT (Pigs’ Foundation For Fine Treatment) with their catch line “Pigs can fly”Let’s hope their oinks and grunts are heard this time and they have better times ahead. Below is the poster for PFFFT, an organization that has set out to make a difference.
Photograph credits
Original bird flying image (I took this!)
Original pig from here
Original mud splatter from here
Edited to add:
Roshmi’s take on the issue – how you can turn swine flu to YOUR advantage!
Jai Iyer says (draws, rather) – After all, pigs are people too, you know!
How long will newspapers live?
There are things I loved to do when I was back home in India – read the Sunday paper at leisure – before Mom gave me late breakfast. And before Dad woke up and came downstairs. Well, I never read all the political mumbo jumbo, but did read the full page Sunday comics. And the picture puzzles and the jumbles. And when I was youg(er) at heart, I used to read the horoscopes too, hoping that something great will turn out of the tremendously traumatic one way crush I had on this girl. But this was way way back – before I went to college. Ok, not way way back, just way back. I am not that old.
Enough with the prologue.
Today, I (along with millions of others) read the news online. I pick and click what I want to read. Computers and ever-increasing internet speeds are making everything – EVERYTHING appear online. Is this the end of the newspaper regime? It was thought once upon a time that 24×7 news channels on television are going to make newspapers go obsolete eventually. But in reality, it never even caused as much as a dent. But let us look at the current scenario. Everything on the internetis customized based on the individual – be it news content or even advertising. People look for news and relevant things based on keywords they use. Information is presented to the individual – he/she no longer has to look for it! With an increasingly increasing number of people depending on the internet for their daily dose of knowhow/what/why, isn’t it only a matter of time when newspapers will go obsolete?
I will argue with myself here, and point out that there is a certain pleasure associated with reading a newspaper with breakfast, compared to reading something on an electronic screen. It’s the same argument you can use for whether you want read a book from Kindle‘s electronic screen or by holding it in your hands with bookmarks and all? But that is ME talking. The current generation that is growing up is already accustomed to everything being present online itself. Will they ever experience what we do? May be till our generation (people born in the 80s and before) dies and fizzes out, newspapers are going to exist. Will newspapers end up in the museum after that? Just how long will newspapers live?
On a somewhat related note, here’s one of my favorite videos called “Did you know” (thanks to Kaushal for showing this to me!). It’s Karl Fisch’s famous presentation on the blinding speed of technological progress. This is version #3 of the project – “Shift happens“. Here’s his blog. Thought inspiring. Turn up your speakers, for the video is great with the background score!
Shift happens
Parts of this post are inspired by a very rich conversation I had had with a distinguished Indian gentleman a few weeks back. We were generally talking about how fast electronics are taking over every activity in our lives. The topic moved to the pointless ‘breaking news’ offered by 24×7 news channels, and then moved to how newspapers might actually go obsolete. Now this gentleman is in his 60s, and I am in my 20s – and I want to believe that newspapers will survive and continue surviving. He, on the other hand, differs in opinion here. Also, he has seen a LOT more life than me, or even the average man his age. I do intend to do a piece on his truly inspiring accomplishments later sometime by interviewing him myself. Till then, he remains anonymous.
I H8 TXTSPK ALOL
Yes, I hate text speak (txtspk). I am probably one of those few people in the world who insist on writing complete sentences even while SMSing/texting on cell phones. I agree every character is precious and it makes complete sense to abbreviate messages so that you get charged for only one message. But why do I have to read txtspk sentences in emails? NO ONE IS CHARGING YOU FOR ANYTHING. WRITE COMPLETE WORDS, LET ALONE SENTENCES. And what really irritates me is when I see a liberal use of replacing “th” with “d”. Look man, are you trying to be cool? Because it’s not working. No, it really isn’t. And you are not gaining anything from misspelling things. It’s totally arbitrary and it is not any kind of reason for celebration or show off.
Fr exmple how wud u lk 2 read da rest of dis post in dis abyssmal form of xprshn? It tuk me forvr 2 write dis sntnce. English is 2G2B4G. @TEOTD I knw u r g8ng u r msg acrss but dis is nt pr8y. K gtg nw. Show me the English ▼
It was late 2006 when New Zealand announced that it is OK if students used text-speak in their examinations as long as they showed an understanding of what was being asked of them. And that decision got many a bee in many a bonnet. The NZ qualifications authority apparently were asked “u mst b joking. or r u smkin smthng?” I was initially wondering that probably no one really wants txtspk to exist because it ruins academic writing. Turns out there are ongoing debates where educationalists are fighting over whether txtspk should be allowed or not…
The first *serious casualty* of txtspk is grammar. Well, grammatically speaking, they are trolls… but dramatically speaking, they pretty much convey the message. Let’s be honest. Languages have evolved a lot from what they were several hundred years back. They have always converged towards ease of communication and understanding. And that’s probably why Latin is no longer spoken by anyone. But will this lead to txtspk being the ‘talk of the town’? Can it actually become a colloquial language?
Nevertheless, ryting lyk dis irritates da hell outta ma sanity.
You might be wondering what on earth ALOL is. The reason behind this actually cracked me up. So, LOL is ‘Laughing out loud’ and ALOL is ‘Actually laughing out loud’. It arose from the fact that some people while chatting on IM or texting on cell phones never really laughed out loud even if they punched in “LOL” on their screens. So they wanted to draw the distinction between just LOLing and Actually-LOLing. ALOL. On that note… I came up with a self-explanatory graph here – the latest in Thoughts in 2D.
PS: I thought it should be text speech – but I really don’t know why it’s called text speak.
PPS: I required a bit of asking around to know what’s new in txtspk. Looks like my age does not permit usage of txtpsk.
Too much too fast
There are way too many electronic devices in the world. Way way way way too many. And the fact they are out with a new model with incremental advantage by the time you open all the bubble wrap. The biggest regrets are accompanied with laptops, desktop computers, digital cameras and *some* Apple products. I mean, I just bought it – you are out with a new model already? And slashed the price of my model too! Come on!
My complaint, however, is not with that exactly. I want to run a comparison with the early 90s and before. When a person used to buy something, be it a car or even a radio, the love for it used to be eternal. The affection one had for his or her electronic item was possessive and beautiful. There was no competition for years to come and one did not get envious of a friend buying a better one…
Let me take an example where I myself am involved. Way back in 1996, I was gifted a Sony Walkman. Oh man I loved it! I used to wipe it regularly, used smart battery practices and used it frequently. ALL THE WAY TILL 2002. So that lasted over 6 yeras. After which cassettes went obsolete and CDs came in. My brother gave me my first portable CD player and that stayed with me till 2007 (5 years later), when I bought my iPod Touch. Three months after my purchasing it, Apple released its 2nd generation iPod Touch which is better than mine in so many ways… but the advantages of the second model are fairly incremental in nature and one can do without them. But still, it is marketed in such a way that it is absolutely essential to have that update, because you are going to reach happiness much faster.
My point is, electronic items are increasingly becoming disposable. With huge numbers already being produced at this time, product life in the market has been reduced to a few blinks of the eye. Can anyone else see things spiraling out of control? What can we expect in 2020? What kind of choices will our next generation be presented with?
Some food for thought. (In retrospect, most of the graph also holds *somewhat* true for boyfriends/girlfriends 
)
Love thy gadget
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