Subtle Aspirations

for a few days now i’ve been repeatedly listening to this song on my iPod

i remember when i had first seen the video of this song back in 1997 december on mtv and how calm it made me feel.

there’s a little magic in the song, you can shut your eyes and really feel at peace with everyone in the world - even if you’re heartbroken, or you are happily together :)

here, listen to it and find out for yourself:

show the world and all its people
all the wonders love can bring
give us strength and understanding
give us all one song to sing
let the music play
play it loud and make it clear
its time to stand up
to a new world that is now so near
from the bottom to the top
to the leaders of the land
we all have one heart
everyone of us must lend a hand
and let there be joy in the world
and let there be no sorrow
(let there be)
and let there be peace on earth
and let there be peace on earth
for all the world
weve got to see

that love, oh love
what a blessed thing (oh, yeah)
say it loud
make it clear today
all the walls are falling down
no more children off to war
if we search in our hearts
all the suffering will be no more
and let there be joy in the world
and let there be no sorrow
for all gods children
let them see
that love, oh love
what a blessed thing (oh, yeah)
say it loud
make it clear today
and freedom, no more lies
we can save this world if we try
one world i know we can make it
yes, its only in your heart
yes, its only in your dreams
you can climb the highest mountains
you can make the whole world sing
love, oh love
what a blessed thing (oh, yeah)
say it loud
make it clear today

Twitter has become an in-bred, part and parcel of my life.

A few days ago someone mentioned about QIK on twitter, and I decided to check it out.

QIK is a service that allows one to stream videos right from their phone to the web. All it requires is a compatible phone (they support most common phones) - obviously you ought to have a camera phone (duh!) and a good, unlimited data plan with your phone’s service provider (else you’ll be ripped apart)!

QIK is currently in Alpha testing - but you can sign up and you should get an invite hopefully within 24 hours. Once you do, install the software on your phone and begin streaming :)

QIK also intergrates with other social networking sites like Twitter, Seesmic, Blogger, YouTube - and you can configure it so that as you start streaming, it posts the videos live on any of the sites of your choice :)

Unfortunately my mobile service provider doesn’t have a good data plan and I’m far from rolling up my contract… which simply makes it very difficult for me to make use of QIK in it’s full potential!

However I’ve posted a couple of videos, most of them are from home as I can use my home ADSL through my wireless router.

Check em out here: http://qik.com/deveshm

Here’s one from all the fun we had placing an order for a pizza with the voice recognition chick on dominos:

I got this forward today in my inbox - now most of the times I tend to simply trash any forwards that come my way without reading it, but considering that I pretty much didn’t have anything to do at work, I went ahead and read it.

Just one of those number twisters which will leave you wondering WTF?!

Have a go:

Don’t tell me your age; you probably would tell a falsehood anyway-but your waiter may know already!

YOUR AGE BY DINER & RESTAURANT MATH

It takes less than a minute. Work this out as you read.

Be sure you don’t read the bottom until you’ve worked it out!

1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to
   go out to eat. (more than once but less than 10)
2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)
3. Add 5
4. Multiply it by 50
5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1758… If you haven’t, add 1757.
6. Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.

You should have a three digit number

The first digit of this was your original number. (I.e., How many times
you want to go out to restaurants in a week.)

The next two numbers are… YOUR AGE ! —— (Oh YES, it is!)

THIS IS THE ONLY YEAR (2008) IT WILL EVER WORK, SO SPREAD IT AROUND WHILE IT LASTS!

I think I shouldn’t be having multiple shots of coffee and sit with Flickr at the same time :-\

Well - I think I was beating myself up on the fact that I had a “pro” account with Flickr and I wasn’t really utilising it to the fullest.

So after a few cups (ahem) of coffee, I sat and uploaded more than 60mb of photos on my Flickr, mainly from my latest India trip (2007-2008). First set of photos are just with family, and now will sit and upload another set with friends.

Check em out - http://www.flickr.com/deveshm :)

After a lot of contemplation and procrastination, I finally got around to do up an intro page on my website. First I thought it’d be a “proper” website - which will tie in to my customised blog (which I would have to redesign to blend in with the website) - and showcase a gallery of photographs and also my portfolio of work.

And I was heading that way, even had a draft ready! So until I was working on it, I thought to myself, let’s just have a normal intro page with 3 links pointing to my work, my blog & my twitter page, respectively. Now after I finished putting that simple page up, it hit me!

I mean why should I bother sitting and redesigning everything, when I could just have a mini-site linking to all of the places where one can reach me or find out more about me! Why create a new gallery page when I already have a bloody pro account at flickr (which I was hardly using at that time)?

So I made a list of the social networking sites I was most active in and decided to display them as links on the front page.

Since the launch I’ve had some feedback particularly about my picture on the home page. Kavita mentioned that the picture was too pensive, Neeral and Ruch pointed out that a touch of digital manipulation would do it good. Finally, was chatting with Surabhi day before and she reasoned out that if she was a blogger who was visiting my home page for the first time, she’d rather be greeted with a picture of me that looked positive and upbeat - and be inclined to connect.

So decent points from everyone, thank you - now I need to find a picture of me that’s “welcoming” lol!

Other than that, I’ve been twittering a lot lately (or not as much compared to everyone else on my twitter list haha) - As much as I had discovered twitter almost a year ago, I laid dormant for almost 8 months before I picked up on it again. Twitter is a great way to make new contacts and extend your social network.

Also was searching for design/creative “bar camps” around in Sydney to attend - so if you guys know of any, please get in touch and let me know.

So to round up, as mentioned earlier, the links posted on the home page are the places where I’m most active. There are a few other places too where you can reach me and they are as below:

• Orkut :Before Facebook, there was Orkut. Powered by Google, it lost fame to Facebook as it was quite limiting to all it had to offer.
• LinkedIn: A strictly “business” oriented networking site
• Friend Feed: This is basically an aggregation of all your social networking sites - more like a one point contact to see what you’re friends are upto instead of visiting each and every site.
• DeviantArt: A graphic design community where members show off their various design work including digital manipulation, illustrations, UI customisations etc.

On a quieter note, I also upgraded both my blogs (this one and the ‘etched in life‘ one) to Wordpress2.5 :)

Phew! That was a long post (or was it?)! Maybe it felt long as I took a few breaks while writing it :)

Had gone down to my local supermarket this afternoon to pick up some groceries for the week… So was walking down this aisle for confectionaries and drinks and i spotted this can which had a superman logo on it!

Now all of you know how much of an ardent fan of the iconic superman i am - i even got a permanent superman tatto a few months ago ;)

Most naturally i stocked up on the drinks - not even realising that what if i don’t like it… Hahah…

Got home and checked out their website… Seems pretty awesome: http://www.heroenergydrinks.com !

They’ve apprently tied up with DC Comics and Warner Brothers and their first set of drinks are called “superman”. Eventually they’ll roll out “Batman drink” and “Wonder-Woman drink” :)

I’m high on just drinking it man… This stuff is awesome!

My all time favourite energy drink is “V” (http://www.v-energydrink.com) - and this tastes so much like it!

I cannot wait till they roll out these drinks in all the convenience stores here :)

Here’s a pic of me with the drink and another one of me with my tatto!