Yikes! Thats a man!

This happened a few days back. 3 of my friends and I was scouting though the malls of Singapore, presumably to pick some winter clothing, for a friend leaving for Norway and Germany. Its a funny story how the shopping went …….after 3 hrs , we didn’t buy anything! There was a mini art exhibition on one of the floors of the mall. It was of water colors on paper and the artist was right there, along with a helper woman who would explain the art to the onlookers. Dejected that we didn’t buy anything , we strode aimlessly into the art lanes. One of our dudes, raks , saw a painting and started yelling “mongoose mongoose”.The woman standing there was shocked! and volunteered to explain the art, which was Chinese characters shaped in the form of a rat to signify the year of the rat. True, it did resemble a rat and in no way a mongoose! after a few minutes of art education, our dude wanders to an other painting, only this time he screams “rat rat”! The lady is again stunned – she said – “no no no…its a Man!!”. We cleared the place immediately!

Classical Gasoline – Fuel for the musical soul !

If you don’t know what I am talking about, Classical Gasoline (Gas) , is an instrumental piece written by Mason Williams that went on to become a huge hit. I often immerse myself into the Eric Clapton version (or is it not ?), whenever my troubled soul cries for peace. Its probably one of the greatest instrumental compositions till date and truly a masterpiece. So strong has been its pull that, it still remains the single greatest reason, that I ever wanted to learn to play the guitar! (yes! yes! Stairway to heaven and Hotel California, but let me keep my dreams real ). You can listen to this short stream or check out youtube for numerous links. Do let me know if someone finds a good quality full length version online.

Nikons and Canons!

Buying your first DSLR ?? – you often end up answering this question. Canon or Nikon ?. Being an amateur , my selection criteria was quite simple – of reviews, ratings and blogs and of course some samples shots. I am not (yet) an authority competent to comment on digital photography, hence you will not find anything useful in this post answering that question! .When knowledge is scarce, it is natural (and often wise) to go with the popular opinion. Nikons and Canons share the chunk of the market between them and are easily the ’safe’ bets for someone getting his first DSLR. Call it brand loyalty (I also own a Canon IXY400) or sheer prejudice, I went for the Canon 400D over the Nikon D40. What particularly drew me towards this one was (again from reviews, ratings ..blah! blah!)

1. Canon seemingly can focus faster, probably a leader of sorts in this technology. Quite useful when it comes to event photography, outings, parties etc. I figured that the large chunk of photos I’d be shooting would fall under these categories and having a faster AF helps!

2.The 400D has a dust removal system that the D40 lacks. I don’t really know how effective this feature is, but the prospect of dust on the sensor really scares me , so I’d better be safe!

3.I cannot vouch on this one, but this is what I garner from the sample pictures I saw. The image conversion (RAW to JPEG ) in Canon was better with respect to detail than the Nikon samples I saw.

But having said that, the best picture I took till date happens to be with a NikonD40 . I am working on my Canon, maybe its just a matter of time before I can produce the same kind of quality that I got out of the Nikon! .

Over this I recently read a quote:

“Canons are the best cameras available designed by engineers, and Nikons are the best cameras one can buy designed by photographers ” - The Internet

Well, I am an engineer ………!!!

A ‘Fishy’ Market!

The past couple of days have spelt doom to markets across the globe with blood letting in all the major bourses . I watched my portfolio gains tumble by more than a third in just a matter of minutes. The reason ?? – When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches cold!! ah, at least, that’s what the analysts would want us believe. But then, these analysts are a weird species indeed…. they suddenly seem to know the exact reasons, often after, everybody else knows why things are not so rosy … and yet they are the analysts. The press is often in love with them and it is like: “any news, we can use! “. Truly , these people are just as incapable of predicting the markets as any of us and yet there are so many numbers and reasons dished out at us, which we humbly try to grasp. More often than not, they add more panic to the markets with their ad(vice) pulling the gullible lot with them to the dungeons ! Nothing beats the fundamentals, anytime, and time often proves this true! I happened to stumble upon this cartoon strip, which I truly believe is responsible for the current market crisis!- its not the subprime blah! blah! blah!

Moment [Frozen,9:45pm, Jan 19 '08]

Life is, but a bitter sweet symphony. There are moments we treasure, and moments we wish, never happened. and yet there are these moments, quite interestingly though, aren’t the happy ones, but still, we cling on to it for all that it is worth. These are not the ones that we evaluate on the face value of the happiness it yields but for a simple enough reason that it just happened! Like the time you actually tell a girl, you like her, and you had fallen for her and you rather anxiously hope she feels the same way about you, and then finally come to the realization that it is not a two way street! Humm….. ! not exactly the happiest, but just thankful anyways that it happened! A moment in my life, I love to freeze.