Shades of grey, sands of time and memories of yesterday!

Boats or Goats are No Antidotes;
Coats and Notes win the Votes;
Internalities Externalities, and rhyming Trivialities;
Strong Breeze, flock of Geese and stinging Honey Bees.

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Groggy, soggy but a kissable froggy;
Hoggy, waggy but a cute doggy;
Lost aboard the magnificent ark;
All but bark and croak, and croak and bark.

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...numbness and an empty bowl;
darkness drawn with charcoal;
blistered and battle worn soul;
aimless and without a goal...

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Lyrics limericks and mossy sauce;
Cider spider and glossy boss;
Rattle battle and lone drone;
Shrewd rude and a prone grown!

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Rhyme so small, its claustrophobic;
Answers long to questions rhetoric;
No choices, then facts are soporific;
terrific sick, highly painfully, toxic!

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Rhyme easy;
Nothing dizzy;
Bubbly fizzy;
small n teasy!

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Rings and bells some old some new;
Changing refreshing thoughts and views;
Useless rhymes I don't think and write to,
Wish a happy new years to you!

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Someone had describe these as 'Distorted Art' on my Facebook. Status messages from Dec 2009.

This line sums it up really well:
'Nothing takes the past away like the future. - Madonna'

And why to Tweet?

Most of us are on Facebook. Most of us update our status regularly. Some of us do it to present a funny line, some to follow others who are writing about recent topics (like all those Rajnikanth jokes), some to tell others that "This is what i am doing right now, and i would just like to make you feel bad" (Like, I am in LA and going to have this weekend party in Vegas, I am sipping a Margarita on a weekday, I got this, I got that... Also, i love animals and help me protect them while i go hunt for my Gucci leather handbags).

And then there are some who update status messages more than once a day, hoping to elicit some response, hoping to hit certain spots. There are also some highly cryptic updates and you expect to stir some kinda of responses... And this is where Twitter can help you.

Twitter, mind you, is not a Social Networking website. It is a Social Broadcasting platform, a much over-used term for it being 'micro-blogging'. Here, loads of people throng, follow you, respond to you, put you on lists, black-lists, make fun of you, join you in making fun of others and beyond all this, converse with you. Unknown folks, hiding behind a handle and a DP. That is the amazing part of Twitter.

On Twitter, you can say anything and everything that you want (No holds barred till a point though!), crack all sorts of jokes and keep mum. If someone likes it they will respond. There is no 'like' button, mind you, that will feed your ego. There are different set of comments. You can take your rants to Twitter instead of FB! (Rant less though because people still read!)

Once you form a small community (metaphorically speaking) on Twitter, you would know what it is all about. You associate handles with people. Ok, @so and so is a pun master, @so and so cracks very good jokes about current affairs, @so and so gets me the latest news (not breaking news mind you) even before they hit the newspapers! and so on! It is fun, entertaining and addictive at first and later fizzes out to a controllable degree.

It is very good if you follow the right people, and not just follow pretty people!

Well then what was the point of this post? Excitement that my Tweet got published on the second last page of the oh so widely read Pune Mirror? (I bet hardly few go beyond Watsa's column!) Angst about people updating their status often on Facebook? Confess that i am pretty much addicted to both Facebook and Twitter?

No. I just wanted to tell folks to try Twitter. At first, read what people write. Then write. Then you are on your own!

Symbols...

A festive season just gave way for a breather till the next one. Dassehra did make me think of some things. This was a FB status I had put up:

I think Raavana was and is a misunderstood soul... Just like Duryodhana from the other epic... They have become a symbol of hate, a hate that should have been directed at our own infected soul.

That made me think whether Symbols of Hate are probably more pure than the Symbols of Love. But then, what is more complicated? Hate or Love? What is more underrated? What is overrated? (I know some opinions about this already!)

And why do we require these symbols? Just to convince our self, consciously or subconsciously that the effigy or the Symbol trapped in the effigy is not what is within us when we hate?

Who knows... Who really knows...

On hating prejudiced people

Just another FB status update and the comments on the status. Opinions are welcome and subject to readers attention and agreement / disagreement. :)

K: It's easy to hate prejudiced people...

AG: Oh the irony!

K: Paradoxical!

BK: No it's not easy.

HS: What if they are prejudiced in your favor?

K: ‎@BK- Then someone else might hate/dislike them.

BK: What I mean is that if you go deep in their thoughts and beliefs you'll find it reasonable somehow, we may not like it, yes its natural ;)

K: Someone understanding and humble might handle it the way you have put it.

RP: How right.. And at least one person seems to bump into you every day.

Tj: Prejudiced people are fun when they can back their kooky ideas with logic, a waste of time if not. So I guess I either love them or ignore them.

DT: Yeah and it is fun to play with their mind time and again. :P

Tj: ‎@DT Evil but incredibly fun to watch them go off, the truly prejudiced ones are usually parroting ideas so used, u wonder if they were ever new.

K: ‎@RP and DT - I totally agree with you guys, when prejudiced people start justifying their beliefs with unreasonable ideas, it is fun to argue with them. So, once you get over the hate/dislike, the habitual prejudiced folks are fun, eh?

Tj: Most certainly....I remember setting off a certain Political Party fan and every time we poked a hole in his theory he would basically repeat it as if that somehow answered the question...

Tj: On a different note I remember telling one of our HR that it's not that she doesn't get my point but that she does not want to get it, she hated hearing that but then HR are supposed to always smile and be nice, so she had to take it.

K ‎@Tj - Awesome stuff to the HR dude. Also regarding the Political Party fellow. That's a typical disaster management type of a thing when ones beliefs get shattered. Like, close your eyes and ears and repeat your (debated) belief to yourself so that it still withstands at least in your mind! :)

What do you say?

Updates

Here is one of my Facebook update and the comments that followed (I just felt like posting it!):

K: There is a pattern in most of things that humans do. Wise are those who can read these patterns in others and wiser are the ones who baffle others by deviating from these patterns while using a camouflage.

B: and these wiser people live their lives by cheating others in this way, and they are not to be trusted.

K: Trust is a heavy word to use. I agree with you. But then sometimes we have a limited choice.

B: yes being trustworthy is saints job nowadays !

K: You believe in simple living, yes? :) Well, from the look of what you saying, you certainly belong to the wise side. Those who can read others very well. Yes?

B: thats right ! but unfortunately I am not wise enough to read others !:D 

A: there's nothing wrong with deviating from this pattern...if nobody ever did that in the course of human history, we would still be living in caves marveling at the invention of fire...

K: This has more to do with human psychology than innovations. Like reactions to certain situations, manipulating people etc.

What do you say?

Smart Burglars!

Well, burglars are catching up! Next time you put up a nice picture of you and your recently acquired LCD TV or Macbook air or anything fantastic on the networking sites... Big Burglars is watching you ;)

This piece of study is really alarming. Now Burglars are using Facebook, Twitter and other sites to track what you are up to and then plan something really nice! A nice surprise for you ;)

Well, putting pictures is not as alarming as this:
'An alarmingly high proportion of users are prepared to be 'friends' online with people they don't really know, this presents a serious risk to the security of people's home and contents," said the insurer.'

Am sure all these BB dudes have a nice shopping cart application on their PC's which they use liberally when they see your swanky new Gizmos and find that you are planning to take your dog to some nice sandy place.

So folks, be careful!