Just linked all his profiles through Ping.fm. This is the test post to see if I can update statuses on twitter, fb, blogger, wordpress and gtalk!

Big brother's watching you

There is no such thing called privacy.

Everything you do is logged. Right from the moment you wake up, switch on the damn TV to watch the news everything is recorded. They know what you see and when. Big Brother's watching and its not just some sci-fi cliche.

You go to the ATM. The bank knows where you live, how you look like, what your sign is, who you are, where you spend your money most, which places you visit often. Basically they have enough to profile you, tag you and brand you. You go to the office and swipe your access card like you're from CIA. They know when you come in, when you go out and what you bring with you. You send e-mails. You take time to insert a Bcc field. Every single character you type is stored and even if YOU delete it, it'll still be in THEIR archives. They know what you're upto. What you have been upto. There's no erasing your past. You have cell phones. You text. You make calls. You send missed calls. Everything's recorded. Timing, number, dates, duration. Every. Damn. Thing. It takes three seconds of triangulation to pinpoint your exact location. All thats required is your cell phone should be switched on.

I don't want to get into a "Zeitgeist" lecture. But basically, if someone gets hold of all this data, they know you better than your wife or your mom. Cuz they know which websites you visit at what times, which ATMs you frequent, where your bills are addressed, what your credit card number is. They know your taste. They know what you have searched for on the internet. That alone should probably be enough to profile you.

Have you noticed, orkut has recently brought the "ad" section on top. Your friends list is below the ads now. And have you noticed the accuracy with which these ads are placed? I read this book called "Seizure" by Robin Cook in high school. It deals with a controversial topic called the shroud of turin. It was a very interesting book and I've read quite a bit on this topic. The first day orkut brought those ads up, I found a link to this.

Photo of JESUS
Taken from a negative on his burial cloth

Neither my mom, nor my closest friends know I'm interested in this. And google puts it as the first ad. They have me profiled. They know me better than myself. So its no more joke that "Information is wealth" and its no more a cliche. Big brother's watching you.

rvinay88 on Google

Srinath was talking about page ranks and SEO. Thought I'd brag a little. Two weeks ago a search for the "rvinay88" tag in google would have fetched you:

"Are you looking for rino88".

In less than 14 days, I've managed to get my name on top. Click here to see the search results for rvinay88

What I did was basically find myself a proper keyword that I would want people to google and started signing as rvinay88 instead of vinay. This was probably a stupid thing to do but it fetched me the happiness of being on top on google.

Ok personal bragging apart, if you're a blogger and u want to be serious about it, choose a very specialized theme. A topic you'd write on. Somethin u have expertise on. Thats the way to go. If you're good at writing reviews, don't have a blog for all you reviews. Have a different blog for movies, music and games separately and link them all together.

Its of course better to streamline and have a topic of interest on which you blog regularly. Close to one or two posts everyday will fetch u proper page ranking. If you have the right expertise, post regularly and have a decent writing capability, u can reap in the benefits.

I really feel a personal blog is probably NO PLACE to do SEO. but it doesn hurt to test and try. I'll probably be starting that one blog I'll write regularly on. I'm looking for the right topic. And I'm open to suggestions. @Sakthikannan25 suggests I write on porn n provide exclusive video :P anyone got anything better.

Making a better blog

I just realized one thing. If I want to earn money from blogging, I've got to be serious about blogging. This here is rvinay88's personal blog. I was reading up about SEO's and how to bring in traffic and I just realized this. I need to take blogging more seriously.

I dont want swarms of people coming in to read what I do everyday. Thats what twitter is for. Follow me on twitter: @rvinay88. What I do want is to write. Write with expertise. Write with experience. Write with flair. Write with passion. Cuz rvinay88 likes to write. But who is going to read it.

I need to search for topics that interest people. @Sakthikanna25 suggests I look up trending topics and write on them. He also suggested porn's the most searched topic on the internet. What I'm thinking is, If I could narrow down to one topic and start a blog and post regularly, maybe I'd do better with rankings and readers cuz i'll have a reader base.

So much for SEO research. N its a pain in the wrong place to ask people to visit my blog in the frst place. To ask them to click on ads is like adding salt to injury. Was that salt or insult? Anyways, until next time, tata.

-rvinay88

Grumpy's day out

Whats the purpose of existance beyond a certain limit? Don't we become savaging beasts that would kill eat and devour to simply survive? Or are we as mellow as the lizards that sneak, hide and reproduce. Everyone wants to live. Survive. But people dont want you unless you have something to offer. Which is why I hope to god that all old people are rich.

My day started with a friend sending me a text. Spend as much time as u can with old people. You never know when you'll lose them. She just lost one of them. Sufferred silently. Old age takes a toll on people. I took her word. I spent the entire day yesterday with my granddad.

We share this small bond right from childhood. We're both foodies. Grumpy, more than me. He's the kind that feels eating anything short of a banquet is a crime. Be it his daily meal or the occassional ice cream. We had Alphonse Mango Ice cream yesterday. With cut mangoes on top. Crushed cashews. A hint of honey. Toppings for an ice cream. You get the deal.

We had an evening walk in this place famous for eat outs and had the grandpa-grandson fun. Walk, buy, eat and burp routine. Twas fun. But twas quite a walk. I woke up to muffled screams of "Aiyappa" from granddad. Twas one am. The walk we had turned out to be a little to long. He had a severe muscle pull and cramps. I switched the ligths on and saw his eyes red with tears. He was literally sufferring in front of my eyes. I tried to rub the muscle and relax it. Took close to half hour for him to get back to normal.

He was writhing in pain. Right in front of my eyes. His eyes red with tears. N I saw him trying to be macho. Hiding the pain. Whatever he let out was suppressed and I could figure the extent of pain he was undergoing. He was hyperventilating. I hate to say this but I thought we'd lose him. I was scared. Twas a horrible moment.

He said "Thanks" today morning. Thats him. Simple. Underplaying his pain. No one else knew. But he had a wink in his eye. Was back to normal. N he taught me a recipe before lunch.

Posts awaiting release

Hey Folks, You couldn't have missed the revamped look of the blog. I'm going in for serious changes in content and topic selection as well. Just thought I'd put in a list of topics I intend to write on in the coming few days. More as a reminder to myself cuz rvinay88 likes to write things down. Not just write. 

• Movie Review - The Wrestler (2008)
  
• Movie Review - Gran Torino (2008)
  
• Game Review - Call of Duty 4
  
• Game Review - Prince of Persia The Two thrones
  
• Album Review - Greenday - 21st Century Breakdown (2009)
  
• Album Review - Eminem Relapse (2009)
  
• T.V. Show Review - Arrested Development (2003)
  

Keep tuned in. 

Ads and tag lines - part I

I was looking at this movie called face off. Awesome movie n I watch it EVERY damn time its played but I was like wtf?? All you need is a good screenplay to make any movie work. I mean who on earth's gonna believe that a coupla dancing blue and red lasers could just cut open your face n transfer it onto someone else? Sci-fi is a lot more believeable. Atleast they show some techno crap to make you believe it can happen or they give you all the techno-babble so you give up tryina listen or understand.

Whats up with ads anyway? They're everywhere. I mean you have commercial breaks, badges, tickers on tv you have pop ups, pop ins, ad sense and everyone's making money. All you need is a little space n you get paid for ads. I mean think of this world without a single ad. Without a single damn logo and their completely irrelevant taglines. So fucking plain. So fucking boring!

Talking about irrelevant taglines, Is youngistaan even a word? People talk about "building a brand image" and shit how about promoting the damn product instead?? I mean wats amul's problem anyway? Clearly, their idea of satire is as irritating as cheesy pickup lines. They rule the cheese industry so they try to be cheesy huh? Taglines are crap, except for Nike of course.

As if pictorial ads are not enough, there's this macho voice telling you that the movie you just saw was brought to you by noodles. Wtf?!

The Khan Conspiracy

Hrithik made heads turn at the Cannes film festival. Read more here. I think Hrithik is one of the best actors ever. I cant find a single flaw with this guy. He's got the looks, the voice, the dance the body the acting. N I feel flustered that he din't make it big in Bollywood. What with the Khan domination and a 40+ oldie competing with his six pack.

Its always a Khan up at the north.SRK or Aamir. Not to take away any credit from both of them. They are great actors but I think they have this tendency to monopolize their trades. And try to suppress any competition. N thats what happened to Hrithik. A super hit that three him to the heights followed by a string of flops. I don't think its coincidental and I definitely do not think Hrithik made the wrong choices.

Its a conspiracy. He wasn't offered meaty roles and the best of his movies were all his dad's who was incidentally shot in his throat. N I think Hrithik's should probably move away from Bollywood that refuses to let him succeed and go to Hollywood into a higher level of this art and make movies that suit his body.

Although he is perfect for a Bollywood masala entertainer; he can dance, romance, cry and do action sequences and even though it would be a great loss to Indian Cinema, I think this would be THE thing to do. He shouldn live n fight in a market thats intertwined with underworld connections and a feudal system running it. He'd be better off without the struggle and without having to look up to dad for money and opportunities without any strings attached. Esepecially since Hollywood beckons, maybe this guy should make a life changing decision.

T and P

Meet Mr. T.

Born in a remote village in India, where no one knew what electricity was, T had a rough childhood. Abandoned by parents, brought up by a foster home managed by a drunk, T dropped out of school and ran out of his village to the nearest city. Begged in the railway station for a few months. Ate what people dumped in garbage bins. Wore the same dress for over three months. Smelled worse than a skunk. Used public toilets. Stole money. Got into a lot of fights. Got hurt quite badly. Soon learnt the trick of surviving. Learnt the law. Best defense is offense. Fought for his food. Fought for his life. Survived. Today, he has climbed all the way up and has crores and crores of money stacked in swiss bank account. He owns a huge house in center city. Half the city is afraid to take his name. Surrounded by henchmen, he is a phenomenon.

Meet Mr. P.

Born in an urban middle class family. The usual tantrums for G I Joe's and lego sets. Fancy schooling. Dating. Texting. He wanted to be a doctor. To help the people. Be a giver of life. Save people. Play God. Make life altering decisions. Make the right incisions with his dextrous fingers.He wasn't filthy rich and wasnt wretched or poor either. Typical middle class. Till it was time to pay for his doctor's seat. He wasn't among the marks and that mattered very little. He can still buy his way into being a doctor. He paid a crore to become a student and paid close to another crore to complete his studies. The usual medical college drill. The college was owned by our Mr. T. He saw what the payments did to his middle class family. Put them deeply and irrevocably in debt. But everyone offerred money cuz once he's a doctor, he can earn it back.

Today, Mr. T demands crores of money to make doctors out of no gooders who have money. And Mr. P does surgeries and runs a hospital administration and earns a lot. I don't blame either of them. This is the system. Deal with it. Your doctor's need not be the best. They might not even know what they do. Your son or brother can become a doctor or engineer if he has enough money. I think both of them take back from this world, what they gave to it. They compensate for what they went through. So an unjust doctor who performs a wrong unnecessary surgery on a patient is NOT to blame. He paid crores to be there and do that. And MLAs and MPs don simply run colleges to give out merit seat. Just because a newspaper ran a sting to gain some brownie points with the public, doesn't mean this situation is gonna be any better.

And where do you run to when you find a discrepancy in the system? To the law makers, the police and the politicians. And what if they're the ones running the show? STFU and sit tight. Situations not gonna change. Deal with it.

Don't know what that means

I just cant stand people who show off.

Its almost always having to have to listen to a loser guy portray himself as "cool", "hep", "connected at the right places", is a "friend of friends", knows this person knows doing that has been there and done that and knows everything. Doesn't it get tired after a while? All this pretension?

I really love a guy who would come out and stare at you in your face and say "I don know what that means", "What does that word mean", "how do you spell it", "is it a restaurant". There are three types:

1. Those who are shy to ask
2. Those who are too egoistic to ask
3. Those who think they might sound dumb if they ask

This is not the same as asking your teacher silly doubts though. Its a lot more difficult. And has a lot of internal conflicts. First you gotta beat your inner ego and admit the fact that you dont know. Then you have to assess the situation and see if its worth looking dumb in front of these people. Then pass your question through your "dumbo-meter" and check if its not TERRIBLE to ask such a question, then frame the question in the right way and shoot.

I saw this friend of mine, we are in the beach amidst some chicks and as is usually the case with chicks, she was peter-vittufying and this guy came outta the blue with a question "what does that word mean". That's probably the last thing I'd do amidst those chicks and this kinda impressed them. Thankfully, the girl knew the meaning it'd have turned weird if she didnt :P

How one could be so shamelessly dumb and still be happy. How one need not know everything and need not pretend otherwise. That takes quite some doing.

Ah, Vettiness

Yesterday was awesome. Its kinda weird how u r absolutely free during study hols and pursue weird hobbies, catch up on all those movies u missed during ur study hols and u are absolutely busy during ur hols. I've made a point to try out a lotta stuff and have been going out a lot these hols. More than usual cuz they'll probably be my last. Coll's over and the new life beckons. 

I went to Bessie after what seems like ages. I coulped that with a guitar lesson session from this friend of mine. Its unbelievable how wonderful people can get. I hardly spoke to him after tenth and he was very approachable and was willing to help me out with the guitar. I jus asked him outta the blue and he agreed. Had a two hour, highly enjoyable session with him.

I played cards after a LOONG time at K's. Took a three hour bus drive, something I've been intending to do for a long time now. I'm thinking of doing more of these free rides where i just take a random bus to from start to finish and then back :D ah, Vettiness.

Also while I am at it, I've been trying to catch up with friends, meet new people, talk to strangers, get involved in a lot of things. Marathons, designing, internships, learning the guitar loads of stuff on the to do list. The tough part is to maintain the momentum and still manage to find time to do some creative stuff, reading, writing, blogging and drawing. So watch out y'all am on a roll and have a lot of time on my disposal so there you go. And oh! here's the best thing I've heard in recent times.

Dada is all set to become a commentator and he is going to do the commentary on ICC world T20 semi finals and finals yay! More here: http://sify.com/sports/fullstory.php?a=jgdx3Aijdii&title=Ganguly_to_debut_as_commentator_at_T20_World_Cup

Dont Shorten

If you have been following me on twitter, today's a very special day. I sent my 1000th tweet into cyber space (applause!). Twitter's amazing man. Its something I've always wanted to do. Sell a dumb idea.

ok, What does your product do?
Nothing
Nothing? Wow that's amazing

Thats precisely wat twitter's all about. Its about nothing. Its just random people updating 140 characters of crap about what they do. And it caught on faster than the swine flu. Look at the number of side businesses that twitters kicked up.

There's hot trends on twitscoop, twit stats, twit feed, and there are gazillion blog entries on 50 things you could do on twitter. You can send links you can upload pictures there're different desktop clients the list is just unbelievable long and multifarious. No one really knows how many different such stuff exists.

This post is about the URL shorteners. A feature of twitter thats set to spread utter chaos in the cyber world. The bit.ly's and tr.im's they are a huge mess in cyberspace.

After millions caught on to the concept of storing files on the internet we got the problem of searching for a needle in a haystack. N I know people who would swear by "tags" that are highly important. Helps in organizing stuff and makes life a LOT easier when you are looking for something specific.

Now these bit.ly's and tr.im's are going to create Chaos and havoc in cyberspace because of the following reasons. Given below is a shortened link for this article:

http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1748-forget-the-resume-kill-on-the-cover-letter


http://bit.ly/Mwoy0

Do you see the difference?

1. You don't know where you're going or what the content is in a bit.ly
2. If the bit.ly goes out of service, there is no way you could visit a link your friend had tweeted a minute ago unless you have a killer memory.
3. There has to be a way of keeping tabs on these shortened URLs. They're not part of any search directory. and u can't go about searching for Mwoy0 when you are searching for Kill on the cover letter.

See its the same reason why programmers name their variables as "rate_of_interest" instead of simply "r" helps in readability, easy to understand, easy to detect, easy to change and all that.

Point is, you cant find what you want if these shortened URLs exist. I've personally made it a point not to use these shortened URLs if the link's too long, I am thinking of tweeting the link separately. And I urge you not to add to the chaos by using any of the shortened URL services.

We have an over-abundance of information flowing thru the web and unless its all sorted n neatly tagged or labeled, there's no organization and u definitely cannot run a search. If u cannot imagine that catastrophe, imagine a life where google'd be useless...thats what could happen. Post the entire link. Do not Shorten the URLs there's no limit on the number of tweets u can send and you're not the person who hates to tweet often. So please do not shorten your URLs.

Writing

Writing clarifies the mind. I don't write to exercise my creative abilities. I don't write fiction. I write for two reasons. Primarily to vent all the frustration that bottles up and its usually hate or anger filled. The other reason to mock at some of those million shitty things that happen around us or to us for no reason.

I don't write for others. I dont write for comments or appreciation. Look at my posts, they're all Zero comments or the ones who comment are people I know personally. I could do some social networking online, comment on others n make them return a favor. I've been there done that. I've been part of blogging societies. It just doesn't entertain. Its like you owe them something. But when its a purely personal reason u have to blog, u don't have an online reader base cuz u probably don't need one. Its highly personal and writing removes the clutter in the mind.

The first time I was exposed to that thought was when I used to read Enid Blyton's and the lead character "fatty" (?) writes things down and Enid goes on to say how he solves the mystery. The only difference here is that, I can think clearly only if I write. So then why are there so many days in between posts? Firstly, I promise to break that. Secondly, I don't think that much :P

Another reason to blog or to write would be to chronicle a day's events or emotions or both. Its weird where u can get gyan from. I was watchin a TV show called Arrested Development, where the dad tells his son "Whenever you make a business decision, you write down why you do it. You have a record of your reasons to make that decision. It might seem absolutely trivial now. But i future you might wonder why you took that decision, and its always nice to have the answers ready." Well thats another reason to blog. There's one more reason to write.

Cuz its fun.

Kickass Cleanup

Its been a busy past few weeks. To hell with limited internet. I ate up all my free bandwidth by tenth of last month and that meant no twitter updates no blogs and for a fortnight I was secluded n living the life of a hermit or a sage practicing abstinence from the internet.

To announce the come back, I'm looking at new templates that can help me pimp up my blog and also looking to post more often. I was on a spree when I started blogging. I created and managed close to 8 blogs. Now it's getting a little cumbersome so I am thinking of making this the central one and cross posting some of the posts in relevant side-blogs. And maybe do a little SEO.

Two things that need attention:

1. Ultimate collection of free blogger templates - especially black - available here - http://btemplates.com

2. Tags - Did not realize the importance of them until recently, so what I require is a standard set of tags that I can use repeatedly. Thinkin of using my blog names themselves as tags. So If I wrote something abstract that would be "Scribbled Chaos" and something regarding technology that'd fall under "technomumbling". U get the drill. It's time for some cleaning up and kick-ass blogging.

IPL 2009

I saw Akon performing. The old man with weird hair did a better job cuz he actually "PERFORMED" while akon was jus runnin around touching people n din a far more miserable job of lip-syncing than Britney Spears. Icing on the cake was..
1. I wanna make love right now na na 
2. Cuz I mish u mush lol

The one song apart from smack that of Akon that was god was "I wanna fuck you". Can u imagine someone singing that at IPL if it were held in India. The moral police would be all over the news. Stones will be pelted and effigies burnt.

I liked the portrait of Nelson Mandela holding the football cup.

Did not like the Miss bollywood contest n thought the results were not fair. Did not like that Indians were not allowed to be cheer-leaders n that they were stadium specific not team specific. 

Did love it that franchises at the bottom of the table kicked butt n reaced d finals. Gives more credit to the "IPL being choreographed"conspiracy

Was very happy that Shilpa Shetty was on the other end of her statement: "Let the team that plays better cricket win" and very happy that PZ got a real hard kick in the butt. I really HATED the way she did this pointing her finger thingy everytime her team took a wicket.

Did not like the strategic time-out.

Felt sorry for Brendon but serves John right trying to topple Dada.

Did not like that John, Sachin n other losers wanted 5 foreign players in a team. This is INDIAN premier league not INTERNATIONAL premier league

Was very happy pak plaers were not allowed to play

Loved budding INDIAN players  find themselves on the purple n orange cap lists

Absolutely DETESTED Praghyan Ojha for holding on to the cup like twas his wife..Gilly was not even visible when the cup was lifted n confetti bein sprayed..he was somewhere in the background

N now Eagerly awaiting ICC T20 World Cup!

But the award goes to http://fakeiplplayer.blogspot.com/