Monday, August 30, 2004

how have u been baby, living in sin?

i thot i'd ramble further on the life as a play thing (palything?) but i'll instead settle for peddling sin
sinfest.net
must see, must laugh comic strip - better than Calvin - i promise!

current music: paki-pop groups - Strings and Fuzon! good guitars on both!

currently playing: New - a new movie in Tamil - based loosely on 'Big'. lot of double-entrendes and even with two of the sexiest Tam heroines, he's managed to keep lust out. worth a watch

curr read: Larry wall's article on postmodernism
http://www.wall.org/~larry/pm.html
re-reading that absolut classic: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - What *is* Quality?!

Thursday, August 26, 2004

Play On!

Two of my dear friends, Nikhil (nana) and Kandy (kaka) are taking part in a play today. While reading something Seems told me, the thought about life being a play came to the mind. This is by no means a new thought (which thought is!?). Nonetheless, i'm gonna see where this leads...

let us assume that life is a play and everyone is acting out his/her part. Can this help me in leading a 'better' life? Let me explore and see if there are any similarities in acting on stage and acting in life.

A little background on acting helps me out here. In order to respond at the right moment and in a way that the playwright intends, the actor prepares. He reads the script to see how the character should be like - body and mind. What should the physical state of a character be at any moment? What should be the mental/emotional state? These questions may be answered with the help of the director. For some, rehearsals may prove to be an eye-opener to how the character should be. Memorizing the script is only a small part of the process. Indeed, The Method permits digressing from the script, if 'The truth of the moment' demands it.

So, we come to the actual play. In the play, the actor is no longer present! The _character_ is what audience sees. The actor has, in effect, acquired a new body/mind through which he responds to the various events happening around him/her. The responses should not come the actor using his memory. That will show that there is an actor! So where do the responses come from?

From practise :). The actor has practised the character so much that the responses seem to come from the character. Of course, there *is* no physical character. There is only an actor, physically. But he has to let the character take over his resources completely - else the act will not be good.

To Be Continued.... :)

Thursday, August 19, 2004

So long, and thanks for all the Internet

it is difficult to be grateful to something that manges to suck all the energy and enthusiasm out of you (is the fault with me? perhaps - but then this post would not be interesting :)

i am talking about the companies that we work for. what do we work for anyways? but i am not here to throw up philosophical questions. all i wanna do is thank the technology that made is possible to connect to the whole wide world. and not only for the utility value.

just the whole thing that we are connected is so... comforting... and exciting at the same time. just to immerse ourselves in this large, connected mind is what we get and the price we pay - the work we do. surely, it is symbolic!, of token value only - why should i bother meself with mundane Q's like - "is this all worth it?". it is *this* question that produces the sense of worthlessness - which of course makes us *ask* this Q to ourselves :).

confused? drink a beer and go to sleep :)
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/08/18/bear.beer.reut/index.html

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

New job, old TT

today was my first day at MODC (McData Offshore Dev Centre) at HCL Tech, Chennai. i am temporarily placed in a training room converted to workspace. i rather enjoy it :).
This whole place has a rather college-y feel to it. The canteen is next door with a TV and a TT table! yaay! life begins to get back into me once i start to play. it was so integral to work-life at IBM. Now it is so here too.
Ppl. here start playing by 4 itself ;)
Cheers
suraj
p.s: sit up straight there u croucher!

Sitting by the pool?

i've been really excited by the pool events in the olympics this year - unfortunately i have managed to miss all the good events - when reading about it is so good, seeing it live would be so exciting!

I really like Phelps' attitude. He's got the enthusiasm of a freshman. Thorpe is now-familiar face but his effort in 4*200 and 100 have been amazing! And although Netherlands is a country i support in most games, it is only when they wear orange :). So hoogenband - tough luck :)

Go Thorpe! Go Phelps! Go Flying Dutchman!