Saturday, October 16, 2004

GUERILLA WARFARE...

The first time I heard the term 'Guerilla Warfare' was while studying history, when they taught us about Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Since Shivaji's army was small as compared to the Moghul army, the Maratha's adopted the tactics of guerilla warfare, which basically means you render yourself invisible to the enemy by either camouflaging or hiding yourself and then launching an attack. It really seemed a cool way to to get that one-up over the enemy when David was fighting Goliath!! Then down the ages in 2000-2001 after 9/11 I heard President Bush saying that the Taliban were indulging in guerilla tactics and attacking US forces from the mountains of Afghanistan and that they were cowards!!! (I am not saying that the Taliban are not cowards, but those who use guerilla tactics are not cowards too!!)
Later a couple of weeks back I read this report in the Sunday Times about the use of unmanned aircrafts like 'Predator' armed with Air-to-Ground missiles known as 'HellFire'. These aircrafts are operated from 2 bases, one in Balad near Baghdad which handles the take off and landing of the aircraft and the other base is in Nellis near Las Vegas which handles the rest of the flight mission. The HellFire missiles are around 5.33 feet in length and when fired travel at a speed of Mach 1.1 before hitting the target. The war head is shape charge and blast fragmentation type!
In all the three cases given above the attacker is still invisible to the enemy!!! How ironic, all thro' the ages, no matter how advanced our technology gets, the principle still remains the same!
Another example is the mythological Laxman Rekha drawn by Laxman, brother of Lord Ram, in order to protect Sita from the demons, as he went to look out for his brother Ram. The Pentagon is researching on the use of non lethal weapons which includes the creation of a high intensity electromagnetic/microwave field, which makes the water molecules in your body heat up for a fraction of a second creating a burning sensation and forcing the enemy to flee! How cool to see the enemy heat up!!! :-)

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 5:48 PM ] [ | ]

   Tuesday, October 12, 2004  

Shock of my life...or is it??

Attended a concert by Girija Devi on Saturday, and ofcourse it was just too good! But an incident that took place before the concert sent shivers down my spine for a fraction of a second before I could calm myself. As being a new driver and given that I am a 'Great Expert' in finding my way to new unknown places, I took off from home almost an hour earlier so that considering all the delays I reach the concert on time. Also here it does not work like in India, where you stop the car in the middle of the road and ask the passerby for the address you are looking for! So as per my judgement, after using the complete hour in finding the place, and while doing so, cutting lanes without indicators, taking the wrong exit and turning left from the right lane, giving a couple of scares to the cars behind me and doing every thing such that if a cop had seen me, he would have definitely pulled me over I reached the auditorium and pulled out my pass at the entrance. At that moment I realised I did not have my wallet on me....and that means I did not have any ID on me nor did I have my driver's license. And I had been driving all over the city for the past one hour without a driver's permit. The thought itself sent shivers down my spine. Its been barely a couple of months since I have owned a car and a drivers permit. Usually I tend to forget my cell but luckily I had it this time, so called up my friend and asked him to get my wallet over. I have decided to put/hang something in my car which would remind me of taking my wallet and my cell phone everytime I leave my house!!

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 11:34 PM ] [ | ]

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   Saturday, October 09, 2004  

I found this banner posted by the roadside today morning while going biking with my friend. :-)))

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 11:51 PM ] [ | ]

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   Friday, October 08, 2004  

Current Morning Mood....... :-) + :-( = :-I

Its Friday morning, and when I woke up at 7.30am I had a certain feeling that made me go back to sleep. Its not that comfy-cozy feeling that makes you go back and enjoy that final 2 minute sleep before you wake up for the day! Woke up completely 10 minutes later, but still I feel that tremendous emptiness, void around me. Probably just like that, the last couple of weeks have been very busy and now suddenly I am focussing on only one thing for the weekend. Sometimes I feel this kind of an emptiness is good, as it makes you concentrate on what you plan to do and leaves you to think all by yourself. I don't feel bad about this, its just that its a feeling which is good and not good at the same time!!

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 8:26 AM ] [ | ]

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   Tuesday, October 05, 2004  

I FEEL GOOOOOOD!!!!!

Yesterday I received a call from a certain Amy Scarzinski...or something....didn't quite get the last name, but she called up to ask whether I would be ready to handle the acoustics and sound arrangements for an inhouse concert here. She had apparently heard about me at the Veena Sahasrabudhe concert that I mentioned earlier and was quite happy with the arrangements. Ofcourse this is a house concert, so very small-scale with an audience of around 40 people but what pleases me is that she got to know about me and that people do ask!!! The inhouse concert, as the name suggests is at somebody's place and the artist is also an amatuer one. But then I'm an amatuer tooo :-) So the arrangements will not be as elaborate as they are usually at the concerts that I volunteer for, but got to decide on the speakers and the corresponding mixer. The concert is on Sunday and then there is another on Saturday by Girija Devi which Im looking forward to. I will be just attending the Girija Devi concert. I feel goooooood!! :-)

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 8:56 PM ] [ | ]

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   Sunday, October 03, 2004  

Week end Movie Update...

Saw the movie Cellular a few days back during the week. My intuitions start picking on me, when I see such a sexy trailer of the movie and then decide to watch the movie expecting something really cool from what it seems from the flick. The movie is kind of OK, with a lot of silly mistakes and dumbo things. Kim Bassinger is average trying to give her best, and look like someone who is really obsessed with a broken phone. The story is really good, and would probably make a very good read, if based on some novel. But the overall movie goes only upto average due to the mere presence of Ms Bassinger.

Also saw Ladder 49 yesterday and what an amazing movie it is....in the sense that such a simple topic as the life of a fire fighter has been potrayed so well thro' out the movie, there is not a single moment where you feel bored. As usual Travolta is just amazing and Joaquin Phoenix stands at the same level as Travolta. Joaquin's acting especially when he meets Jacinda (wife to be in the movie) for the first time is really good...putting him in one of the elite acting categories. Overall a very good watch, definitely worth spending your evening time on...

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 9:01 AM ] [ | ]

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HOW MY HEART ACHED!!!
I started off from scratch in professional audio and still consider myself to be an amateur. But after attending today's concert I think I know quite a bit. Attended this fusion music concert by Zakir Hussain and a couple of other musicians whose names I cannot remember. Sivamani, the renowned percussionist gave a 'Taang' at the nth moment and the excuse given first was that he did not get a visa, which then later turned out to be like he was issued the visa but could not collect it due to some reasons. Thro' out the first part of the concert the sound level distribution to each of the musical instruments was so out of balance, no matter how hard Zakir played the tabla, it was only the violin like instrument that could be heard with much harshness. This went on upto the intermission, ~1.5 hrs and only in the second half when Zakir gave a 20 minute solo performance was the sound adorable. I always wonder, a mega event like this and there was no professional sound team to handle the acoustics. One could see a visually frustrated Ustad asking God knows who, to increase the auditorium volume of the speakers. All in all the musicians were ofcourse beyond compare, and their efforts were being spoilt by inferior sound quality.

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 12:55 AM ] [ | ]

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