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Rant on Money, God, Life and Cooking

Thank God my account is still active. It's been a year since my last post, and looking back, not many things have changed. I still love Sherlock and still meditate.

Over the past few months I have been involved in a few challenging endeavors both in my personal life as well as my work life.

I fixed up my marriage with the girl I love, made our parents meet and agree to our marriage. For my western friends, this might seem like overkill, but in the East, marrying someone outside your caste and religion might just get you killed.

No, seriously!

Anyways, just to go on a different tangent here, it feels so refreshing to write without worrying about keyword density and word count so much!

OK, back to the story.

For many years now I have been trying to explore and answer for myself the meaning of my life.

This search for meaning began in a small way in school, when I became interested in Alchemy, no doubt spurned by Harry Potter and from there trod the hushed path of spirits, God, religion, destiny, crystals, hallucinogens, mind enhancers, brain enhancers, binaural beats, Nietzsche, philosophy finally stumbling on atheism.

One of the reasons God got eradicated from my life was because I started thinking about chaos and chance.

I thought about the fact that had I been born in Afghanistan, I might have been a muslim, elsewhere, a mormon.

Being born in a certain country was due to sheer chance and thus believing in "my God" became difficult.

My new way of life without God got cemented after reading Richard Dawkin's A God Delusion.

Now, after many years I am in a very comfortable place with my personal beliefs.

I get inspired by beauty and art, and for strength I look at the greats of the past. But a new problem has arisen, something which makes me think about the other great constant in life: money.

Due to the whole marriage plans and everything, I have had to think about money and my career pretty seriously.

Now I do have money and lead a pretty comfortable lifestyle but being human you always think of grand things. Especially during a wedding.

While planning I thought it would be great if I could do this and that and for all this and that, money was required in great quantities...

This made me think and question this green shadow of our society.

The whole concept of money is based around the idea, that everyone must provide a service or produce and society pays him/her for it.

She can then use that money to live her life. But there is an inherent fallacy here.

First, there are people who are earning far more than what they provide. Think of a Paris Hilton. There is only one Paris Hilton, but there are thousands like her who are earning money in lower and lower circles of income.

Second, there are those who are providing a lot of labor, but are not earning that much.

These are of course economic issues and though interesting, isn't my main concern.

I worry about something else...

Let's say, I want to do just enough to feed myself and have a house.

This is when the problem starts. I need to pay house tax, water tax, maintenance tax, etc.

And since money is the most important carrier of value across the world, those who control it, will always get richer at the cost of others. It is not a fair exchange.

I might be keeping my money in a bank but to take it out, send it to someone, exchange it, I need to pay a charge every time. Accumulating the number of accounts a bank has, just think of the amount of money they make by charging you.

The other problem with money is, the more you have, the more you can make. It's economics once again, I know, but someone who has $1 million can live a better life, because she has it, not because she is providing a service...

Anyways, I shall write about it more when my thoughts are of better quality. I am still thinking about the idea. But if you have similar thoughts or have a solution, mail me at ishanraychaudhuri at gmail.com.

Moving on, I lately have been very interested in extreme sports. Especially base jumping. There is something so human about pushing yourself to the limits and overcoming a tough environmental challenge, that it is addictive.

Going back to the original question of the meaning of life, I am still coming to terms with it.

Right now I feel my idea of the perfect life would be, a cottage in the woods where I hunt or forage for all of my meals, enough electricity to run my MacBook Air and an internet connection.

Since most of my work these days is online, I would require the internet, but more importantly, I wouldn't be charging money for any of my work. I would be doing it all for free.

I wouldn't want everyone to be living like this of course. I would still want astronomers and researchers exploring the depths of the universe or our DNA, but without worrying about money or food.

If everyone took out the whole aspect of rent and bills, I think we would do far better. But then, the question is, who would be doing these things? Obviously, someone has to. But if everyone reduced their footprint and we all shift to much more economical means of energy, I think it will be a win win situation for everyone and truly feasible.

I also feel that the greatest problem to the solution of renewable energy is - fear. The bankers and oil barons are scared what would happen to their wealth if people no longer require them for energy. I also believe that clean energy research is being stifled either by lack of funding of by the oil lobby.

The most important thing to note though, for those who want to make a living by truly doing work that they love, is learning how to cook.

I have never ever cooked in my life. Not even touched a frying pan, but recently I made the tastiest oyster chicken in my very first attempt. I feel cooking, especially roasting, is something which we humans are inherently able to do.

And there is a strange power in being able to cook the food which you are eating. By giving that power away to someone else it makes you want more, once again increasing your footprint.

By now, I am sure most of you are tired of reading, but thanks anyways. It's a pleasure writing to you.

In case you didn't like what you read, here is a great video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDbrUk2xYBo

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Orgasmic Writing

Neil Strauss's The Game was a massive success. It brought to the light a lair of extraordinary men who could seduce any woman at will. I started reading it as a PDF but soon bought the printed version. It was addictive. It was seducing. It was pick up on paper.

I started to think whether Neil was using his skills as a pick up artist to keep the reader interested. Every chapter was an emotional ride. From joy to sorry, success to sheer incredulity, it was all there in precise, exact words, all meant to elicit a response: not stop reading.

I was a writer myself. Could I learn from his books, not pick up, but the most hallowed of all arts - writing? Perhaps I could.

So I started analyzing. Some of the methods he uses are more or less straightforward. At the end of a chapter, put a peg of something more interesting to come. How to pick up Paris Hilton for example could make me keep reading for many more chapters and then another peg would be introduced.

However, there are other more subtle tactics which he utilises. The author's story is the most sane in the whole book. The reader, thinks pretty much the same way. We all think we are extremely rational and emotionally tempered people who would laugh at the crazy acts others around us perform. Neil is that same person. That gives us a strange familiarity. He is telling us a story in which he is reacting in ways we would respond (at least that is what we think) in the same situation. This means, he is one of us. Like attracts like.

Another of his potent tools is repitition. In his other books as well, he has used it with massive success. By repeating a line or a phrase again and again in different parts, if provides great pacing and subtle control of the reader. We know it is coming but we want to make sure that we are right. Be keep on reading. Like attracts like.

The last one is stacking orgasms. When you read his books, there is a sense of climax, every few chapters or even every few paragraphs in some cases. Yet the climax isn't the one you quite expected. You keep reading because you have already established a connection with the author. You want the climax to be the way you imagined. And the hope of another one, in the distant pages, which just might be the one you imagined makes your keep reading. 

In summation, what Neil brings to the reader is a weird sense of familiarity in a world the reader is not really a part of. Yet, we know what is happening. We feel emotionally connected with the adventure. We feel we would do the exact same things if we were in the author's position. Like attracts like. 

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7 Little Things That Make Life Effortless

Post written by Leo Babauta.

Life can be a huge struggle, most of the time, and for years it was a struggle for me.

I’ve gradually been learning what causes that struggle, and what works in making life easier, better, smoother.

Life can feel effortless, like you’re gliding along, if you learn to swim smoothly, to glide, to stop fighting the waters of life and start using them to buoy you up.

I stopped thrashing and fighting, and started gliding and enjoying the swim. I’ve written a new book on this topic, called The Effortless Life, which I’ve now published digitally. Some interesting things about this book:

It was written publicly, on a public Google Doc, while the world watched. That was tremendously fun — normally writing is a solitary act, but with technology I was able to make it a public act.

I allowed the world to edit it, as I wrote. That was incredibly scary, giving up control as a writer. When I was done, I had written it in a blur, as everyone edited it … and so I had no idea what changes had been made. I thought I should figure out what changes were made, and whether to keep them or not … but then I just decided to go with the wisdom of the crowd, and kept it as is.

It’s a compendium of some of the most important things I’ve been learning recently. It builds on some of the things from my previous books, The Power of Less and Focus, but takes them further.

I’m allowing readers to buy it at any price you like. Pay what you think it’s worth, and what you can afford.

Today, I thought I’d share a few things you can do now, to make life feel more effortless.

Take what you want from this list. I find these things work, but your mileage will vary.

1. Do less. This is my productivity mantra, and it’s counterintuitive. I actually don’t believe in productivity, but instead believe in doing the important things. Do less, and you’ll force yourself to choose between what’s just busywork, and what really matters. Life then becomes effortless, as you accomplish big things while being less busy.

2. Having less is lighter. Start asking yourself if you really need everything you have, or if you just have it out of fear. Start to let go of what you have, so it doesn’t own you. And then, as you have less, you feel lighter. It’s wonderful.

3. Let the little things go. People who struggle often fight over little things. We obsess over things that don’t really matter. We create resistance instead of letting things glide off us. Let the little things go, breathe, and move on to the important things.

4. Clean as you go. I haven’t written about this for a long time, but early in the life of Zen Habits I wrote about the habit of cleaning as you go. Instead of letting the cleaning pile up, put things away when you’re done. Wash your bowl. Wipe the counters clean as you pass them. Sweep up dirt when you notice it. By cleaning a little bit at a time, as you make messes, cleaning up becomes a breeze, and it’s never difficult. By the way, this applies to everything in life, not just cleaning.

5. Make small, gradual changes. Most people are too impatient to follow this advice — they want to do everything at once. We have so many changes to make, but we don’t want to wait a year for it all to happen. As a result, we often fail, and then feel crappy about it. Or we don’t start at all, because so many big changes is intimidating and overwhelming. I’ve learned the hard way that small changes are incredibly powerful, and they last longer. Gradual change leads to huge change, but slowly, and in a way that sticks. And it’s effortless.

6. Learn to focus on the things that matter. This is implied in the items above, but it’s so important I have to emphasize it. Swimming (or any physical activity for that matter) is best done when you do only the motions that matter, and eliminate the extraneous motions. Stop thrashing, start becoming more efficient and fluid. You do this by learning what matters, and cutting out the wasted activity.

7. Be compassionate. This makes dealing with others much more effortless. It also makes you feel better about yourself. People like you more, and you improve the lives of others. Make every dealing with another human being one where you practice compassion.

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5 Elements of Great Design

Every great design has a few things in common. We can all see them and feel them and subconsciously get attracted towards them but when it comes to incorporating those elements in our own designs we do not know where to start.

Here are 5 elements I have identified which can make your future designs much better.

1. Delete the unnecessary:

Michelangelo said,

Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.

By keeping only what is necessary, every part serves a purpose. No element weighs down the design unnecessarily. Take a look at the MacBook Air. The reason it looks so beautiful and has such beautiful design is because they have focused on minimalism and reducing the unimportant.

2. Simple lines:

If you look at the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, the CN Tower and the WTC, there is one thing common between all of them. They all can be represented by using very few simple lines.

This factor is often overlooked but is perhaps the single most important factor of great design. By keeping the lines simple and few, your audience would easily grasp it and remember it.

3. The Golden Ratio:

This one is quite common and has been written about quite a lot. However, I couldn't really move on without writing about it since I absolutely love it. The golden ratio is one of the many things I am awed of. Every great design across nature has this ratio. Beautiful and precise, if you follow this ratio, you will naturally bring a pleasing design in front of your audience's eyes.

You can also play with the reverse. If you want chaos in your design, try and choose your ratios as further away from the golden ratio as possible.

4. Functionality:

It is very easy to lose ourselves in designing something beautiful but compromising on functionality. In India, we have a phone company called Micromax who use Swarovski elements in their phones. It looks very catchy and beautiful but their phones are one of the worst in the world. So you must make sure that every great design should be backed up with great functionality.

5. Emotions:

Your design shouldn't just be an intellectual concept. It should make others feel differently. Once again, we turn to Apple. If you see their products, their ads and everything attached to them, they really make you feel differently. I remember when I first held the iPhone in my hand. It not only looked stunning, but it also made me feel calm and at ease. There is something zen-like about the Apple products and that is not a fluke. It is designed.

So go ahead and design some great stuff and remember I love receiving gifts. :)

Do share on twitter or stumble upon if you like it. Cheers...

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How to Start Making Money Right Now...

Making money online has always been difficult and filled with fluff. To really make money quickly, what you need is a product.

Make an eBook about something you know and are truly passionate about.

Research your keywords through Google Keyword Tool.

Buy a domain name which has those keywords and make a SEO site and make a sales page there.

Open a Paypal merchant account and an e-Junkie account and use e-Junkie to host your PDF file and sell it.

Pay $4 and get 1000 views of your ad from adfly and other such advertisers.

Set up Google Analytics and see who is buying and why are they buying.

Use Adwords to setup your campaign.

Enjoy the money...

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Why I am crazy and you should be too...

I am quite crazy. Most people who have known me for any length of time can attest to that fact. But, what others see as craziness, in that I find my happiness. Let me give you a few instances.

Doing headstands in the middle of the night when those around you sleepily wake up to have a sip of water can be quite frightening to be honest for them. And yet, I felt like it. And once I have finished it, I feel a spike of happiness.

It might be a small instance but there is a lot going on if we study that carefully. Our happiness is mostly like the stock market. There is no steady rise and steady fall. There are those microscopic peaks and valleys which fill the entire line if you zoom in closely. Our total happiness is actually like that.

If we go on a vacation and come back happy, we tell others, "I am so happy and refreshed I came back from the vacation." But is there all to it? Are we happy because of that entire vacation or because the small things, like waking up and seeing a different window, riding in a cab where the driver looks different and speaks another language, where the morsel we place in our mouth the reasons behind the happiness. I am sure you will agree that the latter is the case.

Now, when we are not on vacations, how can we achieve those same spikes we mentioned earlier? The answer dear reader lies in craziness. Craziness brings about a certain unpredictability which surprises even yourseld and as long as that craziness doesn't involve you jumping over a cliff, you shall experience spikes of happiness. And if you keep doing them, there is no real reason why your overall hapiness shouldn't increase. Try dancing standing on the sides of your bathtub or walking on your hands. You will see what I mean.

The second part of this conundrum is happiness leakage. Our happiness leaks away like water from our cupped hands. You know it to be true. You had been very happy after your first boink but then you realised that it doesn't stay at that level. I mean your happiness dufus, not your pee pee. Anyways, what is happening here is once your dopamines slowly get washed away, you then slowly go back to defaults which I think is a state where you are neither happy nor sad. You just are.

To stop this kind of leakage I think what Eckhart Tolle says in his book The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, about focussing on the Now and focussing on your inner body really works. I have read all kinds of spiritual books but this is the only book which I have seen to be of any real help in this regard.

Thus, keep on surprising yourself with small acts of craziness and do it everyday. You will soon see, you will also learn to laugh at yourself and become much more relaxed, a better person in short...

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Top 5 Rap Albums of All-Time

Rapping is crazy they say Here we go again with some of the hardest hitting rap albums out there Coz as proved through time and through history, rap is here to stay…

Jay Z: The Blueprint

The King of flow is here for you now With the most loyal and gritty rap sound The album will drip all around you like snow And make you scream for more

2Pac: All Eyez on Me

Long live the true legend they say… And let me tell you if I may In his short life he made some of the greatest music till ‘day… This album will make your head spin round ‘n’ round… And make you look at the moon and bay!

Notorious B.I.G.: Life after Death

Biggie Biggie Biggie can’t you see Sometimes you just hypnotize me Now that we have begun, this is the album which will make you go gee! I should have heard this’a’long time back, why couldn’t I see… B.I.G.’s final album is just stunning and will make you just relax and be…

Eminem: Recovery

Now I know what y’all are sayin’ This album is not worth paying Slim Shady has made more stuff, which is great and raving... But listen carefully mates…this is his soul talking All his experience comes together to make this album the greatest and I ain’t B’Shitting…

Dr Dre: The Chronic

G-Rap after all is the shit Which was the beginning of Dr Dre and his producing grit… If you don’t hear this you are doomed…for thru this album Will your rap’s ear bloom…

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Yes! He has lost his memory of what boobs look like...

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Top 5 HTML 5 Web Resources

                              HTML 5 is the coolest new markup language. And those of you who want to dip your toes in this refreshing new stream of tags and elements, here are Top 5 websites which deal in HTML 5 and all its coolness.

HTML 5 Doctor: I just love this web site's design and especially its brilliant code snippets and Elements Index. Look around and you would soon learn a lot of things extremely quickly.

W3 Schools HTML 5 Tutorial: If you want to learn HTML 5 and many other languages, this is one of the best sites. Very easy to breeze through and some very lucid explanations and examples.

HTML Rocks: Brilliant. Just Brilliant. It has code playgrounds, which is like a sandbox, side-by-side tutorials, samples and all the elements of coolness attached to it. 

HTML Gallery: If you want some inspiration, this will give you plenty. It showcases some great websites which use HTML 5 in all its glory.

Dive Into HTML 5: This is slightly lesser known but is one of the best websites on the subject and I love the design. Must Check!

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Shoe Hurling: A major source of corruption?

We Indians are fascinated by shoes. Perhaps due to our lack of shoes earlier, we have grown quite attached to this new form of comfort during the post-colonial era.

This aspect of our fascination became public recently when someone hurled a shoe at Rahul Gandhi, the son of Sonia Gandhi, grandson of Indira Gandhi and great-grandson of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Understandably,  Veronique Cartelli, his girlfriend who is a Spanish architect living in Venezuela became quite outraged by such displays of affection and ordered a thorough enquiry which the Congress party shall now carry out. We all know that the women run that household. 

George Bush had famously said:

One is not a man if he cannot dodge a shoe.

Okay perhaps he didn't but there is something inherently funny about this whole incident. 

First (firstly is wrong), a thorough enquiry? Really? An enquiry into the shitloads of black money which the politicians have stored in offshore accounts? Lets start with that shall we. The guy who threw that shoe,  Kuldip, is already in your custody so slap him a few times and let him go. Not an enquiry surely. 

George Bush's spokesperson could have publicly said that, "We demand an enquiry." But, no, these things are not spoken out. 

And furthermore, if someone throws a shoe at someone, he deserves it. Rahul Gandhi knows this of course and he said:

I would not run away, throw one more shoe at me.

And it is true. If someone is taking the effort to come to a rally, avoid security and hurl a shoe towards you and then court arrest, there is obviously some huge amount of pain you have caused to that guy, or that guy is mad. 

And if that Kuldip is a member of BJP, then anyways you can't do much. 

Second (secondly is also wrong), if people get this idea that hurling shoes at anyone is the correct way to protest, then they are dead wrong. Shoe hurling does nothing really. And furthermore if people get this idea and more and more shoes are hurled towards Rahul Gandhi, just imagine the amount of corruption there will be. BJP will start storing shoes in their Swiss Bank accounts. 

And then Ramdev ("Ramdev. He is a criminal." - Party general secretary Digvijay Singh) would move on from "Kala Dhan Nikalo" to "Kala Joota Nikalo". Atleast now some raging maniacs are conveniently sticking their cock out during those mass gatherings as soon as they hear the famous "Kala Dhan Nikalo." 

So, take it easy and if someone hurls you a shoe, remember, Kala Dhan comes first. Only then is Kala Joota.

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Open Marriage: An oxymoron?

Newt Gingrich has made open marriages rise to the top of the chart in Google. I have seen many open marriages in the real world as well as read about them in the virtual world and there are a few things which strike me as quite odd and I am sharing them here.

Open Marriages by definition allow the partners in the marriage to seek emotional as well as sexual connections from other people. 

I feel that definition seems fine for open but for marriage? Marriage is again by definition the opposite of that and it is quite similar to Apple's structure of high walls and internal satisfactions.

Steve Pavlina, who is one of the most popular and famous bloggers in the world experimented with open marriages and polyamory and it seems that even he couldn't make it work. And I mean that in a good way. He is one of the most courageous and honest you can find and it eluded him as well. He has given some very good reasons for his divorce with Erin Pavlina and you can read them here: Separation.

I feel that if you are married to someone and you really love that person, it would be quite difficult for you to balance both the marriage and your other relationships. There are just too many complications because in such a situation you are constantly trying to make sure that your partner understands and is cool with what you are doing. 

As humans we are basically jealous and we get upset not because of the sex or comfort which your partner receives from someone else. Imagine if you will your partner is going to a parlor where they have a virtual reality device which lets her/him have sex with a virtual person. Will you still get jealous? I am sure you will.

The true reason of jealousy is because we feel that our partner is getting things which we should be providing and perhaps are, from somewhere or someone else.

Polyamory might work better than open marriages, as the relationship begins with the premise that both would not expect all of their sexual or emotional needs met by each other. But open marriages, especially the ones which begin as usual marriages, do not have that foundation. Hence it tugs at our comfort zones and when those comfort zones lie within our heart and play with our natural evolutionary instincts, things get ugly.

So, if you are planning to get married, know that it is a full time affair and it is based on the express understanding that 100% of your needs will be fulfilled by your partner. 

As for open marriages, as far as I have seen, they do not work, unless they are not truely open marriages but merely polyamorous relationships cloaked in that term. Decide for yourself.

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What is meditation: Learn in 5 easy steps

Meditation seems to be able to turn off regions in your brain. It is one of the very few areas where spirituality and science meet. But what is it exactly and how should one go about it without resorting to hitting oneself with a pan to 'clear the mind.'

It is easy and as with other easy things, practice is key.

Step 1:

Meditation is taking control of your mind. Some meditate on a particular object, thought, mantra and some meditate on nothing at all. Both ways lead to the same thing: making your mind do your bidding. I would suggest you start with meditating on some thought or object and then transition into meditating on nothingness as I have found that emptying your mind completely holds greater treasures.

Step 2:

Fundamental in any form of meditation is correct posture. The Lotus Pose and its variants such as the half lotus are the best postures as they are the simplest and most efficient. Maintaining your posture throughout the meditation is very important and though difficult at first, it will become second nature within two weeks of practice.

Step 3: 

Focusing on nothingness might be strange for some and quite difficult in the beginning. However, they key here is to not control the mind. Yes. It might seem counter intuitive but not controlling but merely watching is controlling your mind in the true sense of the word. Just let go. Don't think of anything particular, neither focus on 'not thinking.' Just watch the thoughts come and go and if you do not add energy, within ten minutes your mind will be still as a lake.

Step 4:

Do it everyday. Regularity is important as meditating is somewhat like compound interest. The more you practice it, the more easier it will become and the more benefits you will achieve in the long run. Start with 15 minutes and you will find you will naturally extend your time when you are ready.

Step 5:

Meditation is not yoga. Neither is it any other form like tai chi. Though they may have common elements, they are not the same. If you want the benefits that meditation provides and which have been scientifically verified, you have to keep it simple and absolutely basic. You might be tempted to do a headstand and meditate but when your wallop is hanging towards your face, it is really weird.

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Sherlock: The Theories

I loved it. Incredibly brilliant and I am awed at the sheer drama and sentiments (which is always found in the losing side) which this series has brought to our tele. So, those of you who know what I am talking about can surely make a deduction that I am also cracking my head over how did Sherlock survive that epic jump in the finale of Series 2. The Reichenbach Fall, as it was named brought face to face, the two greatest minds in all of literature and perhaps now, on screen as well.

So getting straight to the point. Sherlock jumps. No, it is not Moriarty's body with Sherlock's coat on. If you see the jump it is definitely him. So now, applying Sherlock's own methods, we must eliminate different theories and the one which remains, no matter how unusual, surely must be the truth.

The only time we don't see Sherlock's face is just before he hits the ground. Now, we know that Gatiss said there are clues in this episode itself.

Now, Rhododendron ponticum. Why would it be in the movie. Why would he show that to Watson? Grayanotoxin perhaps? The same poison used by Lord Blackwood in the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes to fake his own death. So, the body which they take away is his and Watson checks his pulse and finds him death. That part may be explained.

Next problem: How does he survive the impact? Now, we must remember, Sherlock jumped off a building of his choosing. He had spent a considerable part of time in the St Bartholomew's Hospital. Could he have kept some contraption. Like a trick. A magic trick. Remember his note. That is something I have been thinking of over and over again. The press anyways knows about him being a fraud and he knew that Watson wouldn't believe him. Why would he then want to waste precious last few moments on telling him it was all a trick? Possibly, because the next part might have been a trick? Some methods of levitating like David Copperfield perhaps?

That is all I can think of and if I do manage to think of anything better, I shall surely keep everyone posted.

[minmax]

Don 2 Review

Don has been an iconic film in Indian cinema history (I don't know. I have been told.) Amitabh Bachchan's Don is imprinted in the minds of the 30's something generation who love to comment that his version was far better than the one which is going around the theatres now.

Shahrukh Khan, the Baadshah of Bollywood has of course brought the beloved character back and millions have watched his Don and Don 2. I didn't see the first one due to lack of time and for having other (better) ways to pass my time.

However, I watched Don 2 a few days earlier due to having plenty of time and lack of a better idea and what can I say...Well I have plenty to say actually. Here we go: The first thing which struck me was to see how isolated and lonesome Don is. Surely, if he is leading a global gang of drug dealers, thieves, gangsters and other such special cases of humans, he must be having more people around to do his bidding. Instead, Don himself goes to a beautiful isolated lagoon (I am not sure) in Thailand and although manages to fight out brilliantly, it was quite sad to see the great Don all alone, fighting his enemies.

Later on in the film he hatches a brilliant plan to rob one of the most important banks in the world of their shining, metallic Euro notes printing plates and since he is Don and almost omniscient, decides he only needs 5 more people to commit the heist. And, hold your breath, all of the 5 people are against the Don. Sheer craziness if you come to think about it.

Don usually meets his business associates in empty football stadiums and other such grand places (no security, obviously). He meets a hacker whose C.V. states his brilliant hacking of the Tokyo Stock Exchange and stealing millions of yen. Don't laugh, these people exist. No seriously, they do. Anyways, even though he is hired as a hacker, he also has other high risk surveillance duties owing to the Don's lack of manpower mentioned earlier.

In the end, the Don gets immunity by a few minutes of chatting and becomes free of all his crimes. Osama forgot this vital part and hence got shot. Dawood, has of course learnt by now.

There are references to The Godfather when the Don utters the iconic line, "Make me an offer I can't refuse." Yes, this Don loves taking things and generally talking slow and walking with a curious gait. And he is remarkably jealous as well, asking relationship questions to his ex-and probably present flame, the female Interpol officer, in a high tension situation. Don is caring, loving, smart, witty, intelligent and omniscient, I realised and although films such as these usually make me want to puke, this one didn't.

It was a fun film, although I think I enjoyed the film for far different reasons than most of the other movie going, popcorn munching, cola sipping public who throng the theatres and speak like SRK once they come out of it...

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The Raw Food Diet

I myself once jumped onto the bandwagon of raw food along with taking ice cold showers and other such delightful fancies of the enlightened mind. However, I found myself tired of searching for proper organic raw vegetables, meat and eggs and relapsed quite frequently to my staple of pizza and cold rice (also known as pushi). 

I need evidence to truly believe in anything special and uncommon like ground panda penis which supposedly works as natural Viagra or the seventh dimension where you can find the answer to any of life's questions. So, naturally, when it came to raw diet, I found out that the most important claims of raw dieters are not only invalid but also doesn't make any sense. 

Take for example the curious case of Benjamin Button who after eating copious amounts of vegetables became....sorry I meant the curious case of vegetable enzymes which are destroyed by cooking. It is true that they are destroyed but even if they aren't by cooking, they are anyways mutilated, molecule by molecule by your gastric juices (a delicacy in France). Also, these enzymes are really present for the plant's growth. Evolution is a cruel mistress and it didn't really care enough to make the enzyme beneficial for you in case tender young shoots ever traveled down your gullet. 

Another very popular claim is that we are not meant to eat cooked food. It seems that this myth has also come from some semi-absorbed holistic cookbook. Our ancestors commonly consumed insects and meats which were roasted in forest fires and that is how our taste for cooked food was developed in the first place. 

Raw food is also not any safer than cooked food. They may contain various pesticides, dust, urine and other such nasty not to mention horrible bacterium and viruses who are praying to God that you are a raw dieter. Washing doesn't remove all of those things completely. Only the heat from cooking truly kills them all. Also some foods like raw (sprouted) kidney beans and rhubarb are poisonous.

The problem with cooking is of course the overdoing of it. Too much cheese, too deep fried, too much salt and too much sauce. Ergo, I have come to the notion, which has also been approved by the seventh dimension, that food cooked using common sense is far better than going totally raw.

Since making that change I have not had any reasons to go back and furthermore I have also not been using ground panda penis...In case you needed any extra motivation...

http://www.livescience.com/889-raw-food-diet-raw-deal.html

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The Cloud Mystery

A lot has been said, written and shouted about global warming. It is perhaps, as the climatologists and the media would want us to believe, the most severe crisis that our planet has faced in a long time. And the cause is not the giant gorilla this time, shocking as that may sound, but us, lovely little anthropoids who have grown to become a huge monster and the planet is screaming from behind closed doors and its cries are falling on its neighbors' ears who is of course the god of war, so what does he care... Anyways, it seems that globally, global warming is slowly reaching the same ecclesiastical heights of respect which only religion was privy to earlier. These days, if you say you don't really believe in global warming or that global warming is a hoax (correctly pronounced as ho-aa-aks, as my lovely repugnant dean in college used to tell me), you are promptly and keeping in mind the element of surprise, castrated.

The other night, I was lying in deep awareness of my inner energy body and trying to suck my own wallop. Of course with the impeding danger of my spine overheating, I promptly resolved my conundrum through the oracle of divine knowledge, also known as YouTube. Many people get drawn to YouTube because of different things. Some to research the latest chaos theory principles, some to look at the bowels of latest cars and some to simply get sexually aroused by watching dogs chasing their own tails. I, having already done the above, tried to bore away my boredom by looking at featured YouTube videos. Just one more rant before I proceed with my story: Who features the featured videos on the featured page? For surely that man (I don't think it is a woman) does not seem to feature anything akin to the human brain. Anyways, back to the story, I stumbled across random videos, sometimes falling on my face and sometimes on my bells. My bells rang though, as soon as I saw something called The Cloud Mystery. It turned out to be a serious documentary which suggested that the Earth's climate was being influenced by the magnetic fields of the sun and the cosmic waves which enter the Earth's atmosphere. I won't tell you the complete story (because I can't) but I would urge you to check The Cloud Mystery on YouTube (in case you are done with your gentle wank). 

I checked the facts of the lead scientist, the Danish Henrik Svensmark and found that this theory of climate change seems to be the best solution we have to the multiple conundra (plural of conundrum) of climate and global warming. 

As you will see in the film, his works are not being published easily as the climate lobby doesn't really like any new theories disturbing their old ones. After all, they have worked so hard to give us a theory which is not only unproven but also feed us with plenty of guilt. Perhaps, very similar to religion, don't you think? At least peer reviews should surely be done and more awareness among us will definitely help the cause as well as make Henrik's papers see the light...

Most of all, it will make us think of this crisis (or not), and not merely nod in unison to the vomit (or any other nasty) which the media, political, corporate and other lobbies are making us swallow...

Watch it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANMTPF1blpQ

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Hail the Ghost!!!

I walked into the room. My eyes met with walls ripped of their paints and plasters hanging like an ancient mummy. Non maintenance had made the house a wretched place.

An eerie feeling was lingering in the entire building and the two pastors hurriedly declared the place to be the playground of a demon.

Armed with their crosses and the holy bible, they started an “Our Father…” in the drawing room. Shane, the owner of the house, stood by their side hoping that whatever was pestering and scaring him and his mother would soon be exorcised and the house would return to being ghostly, just in appearance.

I on my part, armed with motion detection cameras, voice recorders and my handkerchief (I am allergic to dust), went into the other rooms searching for a proper place to set up the motion detection cameras, where hopefully the demons would come through for their evening strolls.

I once again had the realisation (one which I have had for the haunted houses I had previously visited), that the atmosphere in the building was so dark and morbid, any shadow could send shivers down your spine at night or even in the day if you were scared and alone.

Putting aside my reservations, I reminded myself that I must keep an open mind and try my best to capture physical evidences for our spooky other worldly friends and neighbours.

Having set up my camera, I went back to join the pastors in their earnest request to the son of God himself, to abolish the spirits from the building. Having finished a centuries old ritual, they moved around the house, sprinkling holy water and chanting the name of the saviour.

After doing things which were understood, I feel, far better by the demons, than me, we all sat down on the sofa and started talking.

I needed to get my report ready to submit to my boss, so I started asking them the standard questions.

“What made you feel that there was something out of the ordinary happening in your building?”

“I don’t know, the first time, yeah, remember Shane, the first time I went to sleep and suddenly woke up at night and saw a dark figure holding me to my bed. I couldn’t get up or shout….”

“Can you describe the figure?”

“I don’t remember clearly. It was big and dark…”

“Anything else?”

“Yes, everyday something or the other falls on its own. Yesterday only, Shane came back from the kitchen and after sometime a plate fell and smashed on the floor….”

I offered to make tea (tea is one of my specialties) so that I could get some time alone, and finding myself in the kitchen, started investigating a little.

Wall lizards, ants, cockroaches, hiding in every possible little crevice in the walls.

We had our tea. The next morning, the two pastors and I left Shane and his mother, wishing them to be peaceful. My cameras and voice recorders had picked up nothing, as usual. I was rather disappointed; At least a cat should have walked past the cameras…

There is a phenomenon called sleep paralysis which is very common in people. Whoever faces this phenomenon normally report seeing a long lost grandmother, old man, dark shadow, holding them to their bed. This often sparks the fear that there are supernatural elements in the house.

Once that thought is established in the mind, every single unusual occurrence is then tagged to that element and after two months of such mental trauma, the pastors get called in.

This was my sixth visit to a haunted house in Kolkata and my fourth as a representative of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

So, once again, it is Man 6 : Ghost 0.