The next in-thing!

Source: http://www.valleywag.com/

Wondering what that was all about? Well, those are extracts from the pre-view of the iPhone! As you probably know (especially if you're an iPod maniac like me) Apple pre-released its iPhone - just 4 handsets - to 4 members of the press for them to give you a peek into why you can 'actually expect' the iPhone to be a revolution. That's not saying much, because all the four reviewers are known pro-Mac/pro-Apple/pro-iPod journalists.

Nevertheless, this is the first time we are witnessing such a marketing strategy by Apple. Usually tight-mouthed about releasing details of its products, Apple has gone out of its way this time to create a huge hype about the iPhone (with nearly a million people in America booking for the iPhone a month before its release!)

What I love about Apple is its stylish simplicity! And the iPhone promises loads of such features. Like the reviewers have said, I suppose its going to take us - the normal people who don't walk around with Blackberrys (yet) - some time getting used to owning a phone without a keypad - but that's what the 'revolution' is all about I guess. With a large (and reportedly brilliant) display interface and an amazing camera, this iPod containing phone with amazing browser (again reportedly) facilities looks to be the next in-thing.

With tomorrow (29th June) being the day of its release in the States, I suppose we can expect the iPhone to be reviewed through and through before it aims for a launch back home. It is definitely going to be among the top of the list for people with the right kind of budget looking for a new, trendy 'phone'.

Invaluable!!

I was looking through some of my old emails - and as it so often happens, I rediscovered a few wonderful mails! I particularly enjoyed one such forward and thought I'd share it with you:-

WHERE TO TAP

Ever heard the story of the giant ship engine that failed? The ship's owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure out how to fix the engine.

Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a youngster. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom. Two of the ship's owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do.

After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!

A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars. "What?!" the owners exclaimed. "He hardly did anything!" So they wrote the old man a note saying, "Please send us an itemized bill."

The man sent a bill that read:

Tapping with a hammer ........................ $2.00

Knowing where to tap ............................ $9998.00

You may be doing something in life which many people consider trivial; but when you do what you do better than anybody else, your moment of glory will arrive! Like the very meaningful 3 words of my school's motto (PSBB) read- Knowledge is Power!

My piece came in The Hindu Metroplus (Chennai edition) on 20th June under the Voice your views column. Its actually quite childish, but nevertheless, I was elated to know that it had came in print! :-) The topic was 'Hobbies as Therapy'

Recharge
yourself
Being a third year
engineering student in a
hostel far away from home
is demanding. Good
hobbies can relieve stress
and rejuvenate. A game of
tennis or just a jog around
the campus instead of
playing violent games on
your PS console or an
experimental hour or two
in the kitchen with the
iPod on instead of
watching ancient
Spartans killing each
other in fictional, historic
scenarios or reading a
story book (preferring the
hard copy over the e-text
version) will definitely
recharge your batteries!
ARCHANA
BALAKRISHNAN
Singapore

I got to know about it only when my sister called and told me about it. She made what I must admit is one of the best compliments I've ever received! She said, I love it because you've written very honestly!
Its maybe 'cause my sister knows me so well. Way back in 8th Std, I used to strive so hard to get my pieces published in the Gokulam, that I always wrote in a style that I thought other people expected and appreciated - I used to dream for days about presenting my thoughts in a particular manner but then at the last minute give it up for want of seeing my name in print.
I guess blogging has helped me overcome that. I've realized that what really matters is the quality of the thoughts presented in a language that everyone can relate to!
This reminds me of a conversation I was having with a close friend. We were talking about blogs (Does that sound like I'm a totally jobless person? I guess I am... :-) )and she told me of an instance where this friend of hers started blogging - but the blog seemed as though it was written by a completely different person! Sophisticated language, very noble thoughts and the like.. And I realized, yeah..there are people who project themselves very differently on their blogs and in person seem totally different people. I don't really know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. For one, I'm not a really outgoing person. I'm slightly reserved, very awkward and cautious till I get to know people (And once I'm comfortable in their company, I'm like this chatterbox that can never shut up..) and yet, here I am pouring out some of my deepest thoughts for some stranger in some spot of the world to read! Does that make me a 'double agent' kind of person? I really wonder... But on the brighter side, even if it does, at least its considered 'kewll' right? :-)
I guess this is what they really mean by 'random ramblings'

Garfield!!

During one my numerous wanderings in a vast jungle called the world wide web, I came across this first ever printed strip of Garfield!! And what a time I chose to find it - This first strip appeared on 19th June 1978!!



So this being Garfield's 29th birthday, here's my small dedication to wonderfully lazy and hungry friend!! Firstly, Thank you! You were the reason I recongized the existence of something called the newspaper :-P I guess I loved reading Garfield because I shared so many things with him!! His hating mondays, his cute plump self refusing to do what's usually 'to be done' - like chasing mice and yeah..obviously his love for food and his unusual style of expressing his love to Odie and John.

Yeah..Garfield had a makeover and so did John (Thank Goodness for these little things in life :-) ) I rather love the new Garfield look - he somehow seems cutuely plump and even more adorable! Hurrah to this brilliant cartoonist and long live Garfield!! Here's drinking to even lazier days!!!

Just attaching a few random strips that I enjoyed :-)

Wonderful June is here!!

Dedicated to my school - PSBB, my wonderful teachers there and my friends and schoolmates: Thanks a ton for making my school years special enough to generate memories pleasant enough for me to blog about it all!

Ah! June is here again...June for me has always meant the wonderful smell of new Bata canvas shoes, brand new and neatly ironed uniforms - with a resolve of not outgrowing them, at least horizontally, before the year was done - a new backpack (which emanates an odour like everything new usually does - a smell that I actually hate .. but love in this context) filled with a new text books and several notebooks covered neatly in brown wrappers with prominent mickeys and Donalds waving out to me with my name plastered next to their tiny figures :-D June meant the beginning of another new year at school, meeting up with friends and classmates -who seem to dissolve to another world during the vacations - and of course the important first steps - creating a good impression on the new class teacher, getting a desk that wasn't too far away from the board to alarm the teacher's 'naughtiness' antennae but at the same time not too close to smell the perfumes the teacher used (or rather didn't :-) ) June almost always began with the usual - "I can't believe the vacation is already over" - attitude on the outside, while inwardly wondering what ever makes us the way we are - praying for holidays during the term time and for classes during the vacations! June..ah!! Wonderous June!!

But now, at twenty (and a month) I'm supposedly 'enjoying' a life-long vacation from school! Uni life is definitely fun - you have a certain independence, a new purpose in life and you're in the process of making a lot of exciting new discoveries that people usually make in young adulthood - but I'm already wishing that my school years could come back! I really miss the belonging - to your section, to your batch, to your school - basically because none of it is actually here! I mean, yeah..NUS is awesome - I love my course and I am here because all these efforts are going to generate certain returns later on in life - but with your class of around 400 students - not all of them taking all the subjects you are - with your lecturers hardly recognizing your face, forget remembering your name! - school life definitely seems something worth much much more than I'd have even realized back then!!

So, those of you still in school, enjoy your years ahead! They're going to be your among your most treasured memories! Those in uni like me, well, I suppose in a few years' time, we'll all again be cribbing about how good uni was and how bad work is :-D So lets make our stay here, memories worth remembering! And, those of you who are already working...well..you definitely have enough money by now to purchase a ticket to a movie - So go ahead and enjoy some exaggerated drama about youth that'll push you to remember and cherish all those crazy little things that made your youth worth it all!! :-P

Tags: random, school