Jay Mody

“The pendulum is begining to swing fro.
The hour-glass is about to undergo a reversal.

Its time for the king to resign.
Microsoft has undeniably been the one and only leader when it comes to desktop OSes, Internet Browsers, new technologies and much more. And rightfully so. Skeptics, please stop reading here. People with an open mind, continue to scan.

Hating Microsoft has become more or less a fad or a trend in the geek-world. But like it or not, whatever technology they have invented has gone on to become one of the most popular ones. No point in taking any names here because almost 90% of the people reading this are working a Microsoft platform currently.

But the time has come for the leader to take a backseat.

Enter Linux.
It brings with it hordes of technologies, which vow to and already eating up market space. Capturing peoples heart with unmatched stability and security. Its a gradual process.
With Linux came, the PHP scripting language with is slowly phase out ASP (hard to believe since I am an ASP coder myself ).
Its a domino-fall. PHP takes over ASP, this leads to Windows Servers being taken over by Linux ones.

Red Hat Lunix 9.0 is eating away the desktop space with lightening speeds never seen before. The best exampleis that of IITs. They used to have a 50-50 ratio of Linux-Windows. This has become 80-20 in favor of Linux.

All this makes me construe that the king is no longer agile and active as it used to be.

May its soul rest in peace.”

“Some new things in the Den…
A new blog for venting out my creativity.

Have to agree that it was inspired by Prats’ blog

Check ’em out using the links on the right hand side of this entry called “”New to the Den””

Its called Myriads of Moods”

“Buried in reams of red-tape and bureaucracy, education seems to be breathing its final breaths. But the optimistic few (like me) are still lurking behind the deceptive fronts, waiting for a major upheavel, a la phoenix.

The system is poised for a major catharsis. It is/was bound to happen at some point of time. Its a shame when in the land of torch-bearers and the cognizant few, education seems to be caught in a labyrinth of politics and corruption.

Money talks, as always. The system is plagued in every possible dimension. Teachers who cant teach, Principals minus principles and politicians being the top-dogs are the trends.

Its heading this way. A revolution. A major one. One that will change the face of the education. The one that will actually make the educated few, the cognizant few.

….And yes, I am back after that bout of depression. I have learnt a lot in the past few days. I have learnt to take it in my stride. I am back .

Heres one more Quizilla >>

Poseidon

?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
brought to you by Quizilla

”

This is the first and probably the last personal post that I am making here.

I am totally mind-fucked.

I dont know life is heading which way….everything seems to be going puff in the air….. The college project is not happening. CAT (an entrance exam) is not happening. The sem is not happening. The results are expected and they wont be happening either.

The only thing I am clear about is that, I am standing at crossroads, befuddled, confused, not knowing which path to take. One more decision to make, one more risk. One wrong move and my life would be screwed.

Ohh save me from this conundrum!!
I cant stand all the tension.

I want to break free
I want to break free
I want to break free from your lies
You’re so self satisfied I don’t need you
I’ve got to break free
God knows, God knows I want to break free

— Queen (1984)

“
Whether to dream or not has always been a conundrum.

View

After all dreams are dreams. Vain in nature and hapless in motives.
What good is a dream which cannot be achieved? It is plain wishful thinking which can push a man to the brink of desperation and hence, frustration.
Rightly it has been said: “”If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.””
Dreams give a man false hope. Hope of something which he can never achieve. The world is pragmatic. Dogma does not last for more than a few grey cells. Dreams should be taken in the least seriousness. They are only a psychological process that one cannot avoid.

Counter-View

‘We dream of what we can, not what we have,
and we work for not what is but what can be‘
— Daewoo

To make a great dream come true, you must first have a great dream.
The illimitable success stories strewn all around our society are the product of endless and tenacious dreams. Dreams are the lights that show the way to the blind. Infinite in nature, subsuming in their grasp, dreams do not differentiate between the affluent and the penurious, or between the visionaries and the blind.
Much more than wishful thinking dreams add a new dimension to a monochrome life.

Dreams enable success and success enables dreams.
”

Darkness calls me in its hollow,
There’s neither pain nor any sorrow,
My sub-conscious is so entwined,
Like a body without a mind.

In times of loneliness and strife,
It shows the lighter side of life.
Takes the spirit to such a high,
Like a bird in a cloudless sky.

The distant lights they beckon me,
Inebriated in their caress I be.
In tri-state darkness is a friend,
Truly its the only friend.

Showing me visions that light cant see,
The enervated mind set free.
How, oh how did I despise,
The feeling that was called reprise.

“For the first time I am touching on this blog, one of my passions in life. Drumming.

I was surfing the net when I came across a few websites:

Zildjian : This is the website of the biggest drum-company in the world and its got some mind-blowing sections.

Mike Portnoy : He is one of the gods of drumming, he has played with Dream Theater and Liquid Tension Experiment is his side project. I cannot imagine how he can play the way he plays. If I would try I think I would require a few more hands and feet to play . He has got a monster drum-kit. I am posting some pictures of the same. The name of the drum kit is “”Purple Monster“”

Now if someone granted me one wish, it would be to play once, just once on this raging beauty

”

“On my way through the blog-world, I came across nostalgic posts from Ankh and Sapna. And I went on retrograding and reminiscing the old times. Particularly the good ol’ school days.

Circa 1989. I remember when I was in primary grade (Std. First to Fourth), Dad used to come to drop me and my Sis to school everyday. We had (we still have..) this porch in our building where pegions used to assemble every morning as if they have come to hail the monarch. I and my sis used to carry grains for the pegions in the caps of our water bottles. A few weeks after we started taking the grains for ’em, they actually started waiting for us to come and they used to flock together in a huddle….

There was a nice, clandestine shortcut to our school, from where we used to go. We used to throw stones and catch some mangoes, in its season, on our way back from school. Darn, all that is now gone…A huge concrete building stands in the once sylvan path trodden by many tiny-tots.

Come rains and there used to be puddles of water in our school. When physically you are the size of a dwarf even a puddle seems like a sea. I still remember the small paper boats we used make and sail in the turbulent and rocky seas.

The endless waits for the recess bell to ring in the school, the shouts of “”We want Holiday””, the celebration of the birthdays of all the kids (whether you know them or not) are just some of the highlights in the memory. Those were the days of innocent friendship, free-wheeling life, trysts with nature, curiosity about things of life.

These are some Scenes from a Memory (Prats, once again), that I’ll never ever forget.

Living this charade
Is getting me nowhere
I can’t shake this charade
Home… It’s what I long for
Back home… where I belong
— Dream Theater
”

“……….take a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Concentrate on your breathing.
With each breath you become more relaxed.
Imagine a brilliant white light above you,
focusing on this light as it flows through your body.
Allow yourself to drift off as you fall deeper and
deeper into a more relaxed state of mind.
Now as I count back from ten to one,
you will feel more peaceful, and calm.
Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.
You will enter a safe place where nothing can harm you.
Five. Four. Three. Two.
If at any time you need to come back,
all you must do is open your eyes. One.””

Safe in the light that surrounds me
Free of the fear and the pain
My subconscious mind
Starts spinning through time
To rejoin the past once again

No one can probably do justice to Dream Theater by commenting on their “”Metropolis Pt 2: Scenes from a memory“”. But nevertheless appreciation drives you the brink of ecstasy.

An intricate web of life, death and after-life woven in a labyrinth of music. Metropolis takes you on an unprecedented journey through the ravages of human mind and the truly vain motives.

With hypnotizing music all through the Act, it leaves you dazed when you hear it for the first time. John Petrucci weaving an intricate design with his godly guitar and Mike Portnoy taking you on a mind-blowing cadence with his heavenly drumming.

If there is any other music, apart from Pink Floyd, in which you discover something new everytime, it is truly that of Dream Theater.

Here is one more attempt and judging what is Dream Theater: Review

Yet another Quizilla.

I gotta admit, Michelle has really got me going on these quizzes.. bad girl ….

Heres one more on the house….

“”You Shook Me All Night Long”” (by AC/DC)
‘Cause the walls start shaking
The earth was quaking
My mind was aching
And we were making it and you –
Shook me all night long.

Which 80’s Song Fits You?
brought to you by Quizilla
”

Forunately or unfortunately, I live on a road that leads to Borivli’s most popular and the only immersion site. If you are wondering what I am talking about then think no further…It is Bombay’s (Mumbai’s) annual festival of pomp and noise, Ganpati Visarjan.

At times the Ganpatis are larger than life whereas at times the decoration is so frivolous that it hides the esscence of Ganpati. Thousands of people tread our roads on this particular day, dancing and singing their way towards the circumlocuted sea. Crackers going by thousands and a similar amount puffed in the ever-polluted air. But on this very day, people have no qualms. The pollution theories change for a day and the whole milieu turns upside down.

As you look down from the jam-packed terraces you can see hundreds of heads bobbing up and down, members of the street bands carrying bulky drums and kicking them with ever-increasing vigour (I have to admit, reluctantly, that the decibel level beats that of rock music !!). Different factions of people vying with each other for the race to reach the pinnacle of their decibel capacity. Women are clad in multifarious sarees for the occasion.

If ever I’ll miss anything about Bombay and especially the area that I live in, it will always be the joyous and the ever more pompous festival of noise.