Truth be Told.

Not too long ago I caught a few episodes of Dexter on Showtime. The premise is quite engaging - sociopathic blood spatter analyst for the Miami PD satisfies his urge to kill by cutting up and disposing of "bad guys" (arsonists, molesters, rapists, etc). Somethings that I particularly like about the show are the direction and storytelling/narration. Its sort of like a Hemingway novel. Never verbose, yet always articulate, and filled with realistic charaters who are messed up in their own little way. I don't know where I was going with this but as I was watching the show I realized that shows on TV have changed drastically. I mean you don't see Happy Days, or Green acres, or Mister Ed, or Dukes of Hazard, or Beverly Hills 90210, or Saved by the Bell. In an attempt to make the shows more relevant to the audience they have evolved into the OC, Nip Tuck, CSI , Dexter. Superficiality and murder. I guess the only question to ask is: has reality always been this way ? Has it been hiding and changing and waiting to come out with such impudence ? In other words, have the human complexities changed into something so grotesque within 40 years or have writers become daring enough to share their most intimate fears ? Even though I'm scared by the answer, in some ways it reassures me that I'm not alone.

Sports

It's scorching outside but nothing compared to what it was like a month ago, when I was in Calcutta. I think it was good that I went back right before summer started here. It was almost like going to strength camp before football season starts. After having dealt with the heat and humidity there, summer in STL seems like a vacation in Hawaii in the middle of January. In retrospect "football" is not to be confused with men in helmets and a bad attitude. I meant football like the rest of the world means it - the proper way (because you actually use your foot in the game rather than cradling the ball with your hands). Anyway, there is something that has been bothering me for about a month now (besides the redness and burning sensation in my balls).
It is the lack of sports in my life. Apparently there is no one our age - in their 20s or above - who like to play sports anymore. They'd much rather sit on their ass and watch it on TV so that they can analyze the event with some half baked knowledge of the game and some obsolete experience of having played it a billion years ago. I can understand how pursuing sports can take a back seat to chasing beautiful women, or a kick ass job; but to compeletely discard it, is pretty pathetic. Here's a random thought and I might be completely wrong but did anyone ever stop and think that if sports was played more and watched less, not only would STL be bumped of the "most obese cities in america" list, it could actually contribute to unecessarily glorified atheletes taking a pay cut? According to a recent survey most fans of any sport such as American football, baseball, football, Cross country, swimming, basketball, bicycling, etc etc. are most impressed by two things - speed, and stamina. Believe it or not skill comes third with the exception of basketball. Looking at that statistic one might be inclined to conclude that :a) either the fans are impressed by speed and stamina because they are comparing their own physical conditions to that of the atheletes or b) they are impressed by how much better is one athelete is from another - in terms of speed and stamina. Personally I think, choice 'b' has a low probability because professional atheletes tend to be - pretty much - at the same physical performance level. So, if fans are comparing these athelets to themselves w/o even playing the game then they are mistaken and by simple law of supply and demand the worth of the athelete is lessened. That was a skipping too many steps ahead so I'll explain. Lets suppose that someone is extremely impressed by beckham's ability to bend the ball (although didn't help him win this world CUP. SUCCA !)it's because the last time he played the game was in 7th grade. How much can you actually remember about your speed and your stamina or your skill for that matter from seventh grade ? Besides you quit playing the game after that one summer or one semester - maybe even if you stuck with it till now you would suck; but you'll never known because you didn't. You quit ! Now imagine this realization and it's implications on a much larger scale. First of all, players are appreciated for their true worth and not just because of what they achieved by training 9 hours a day - because that is called practice and dedication, not talent. Also, practicing for athelets is pretty comparable to what we call jobs - it's the pro players job to show up and practice so that he can perform at the pro level. And second of all, since you are talented we are going to watch you perform but that doesn't mean that you get to extort us from our money which we worked just as hard as you to get. Because it's true that some people have much more fun jobs than others; but at the same time the not so fun jobs are equally important for the community - you don't pay your cable guy 1 million dollars for coming out and fixing a co-ax so why would you pay $3600 to go and see Ronaldhinio suck balls (aka show no considerable talent whatsoever) in the world cup against france. "suck balls" is not an opinionated rant because C.Ronaldo(Portugal) played the exact position as Ronaldhinio and broke the french defense almost every time he came down the field. So my advice would be to get off the couch and hit the fields.

Modern Man: The UNsocial animal.

Being your own best friend I suppose has many upsides. For one thing you never have to compromise about doing something that you don't wanna do, you never have to avoid telling yourself something that might hurt you, you never have to worry about betraying yourself, and last but not least you don't have to be understanding to yourself. Of course the downside is you become an "introvert" or a "loner" or "socially inept" or a "freak". The question to ask here is this: how much strength do you carry within urself to counter the aforementioned labels ? Would you let the comments get to you, whereby you either isolate yourself more from society, or try to be more accepting and trusting of other people without caring much about your best interest ? I think the answer is somewhere in between. The idea is to keep yourself isolated and invulnerable yet inconspicuous enough to not gather too much attention about your so called social incapability. In other words have "acquaintances" not "friends" (in the traditional sense of the word). Acquaintances come without liabilities. Words and phrases like hi, hello, bye, really?, how you doin ?, good luck with that !, dinner sounds doable, i'm going to take a rain check on that, etc can be said to maintain "civility" and a person doesn't have to mean any of it. Friends on the other hand require the use of I'm counting on you man, I need you to do me a favor, can you spot me ? , how could you forget my b-day ?, sure i can pick you up, I'll be there, you wanna take a walk ?, and other phrases of the kind - there is a sense of responsiblity and accountability, there is a fear of losing something, there is vulnerability. Maybe this is what saints and priests refer to as zen - being here and not here at the same time. You are here yet you don't attach yourself to anyone because you are aware of the transient nature of this universe. One day he/she is your best friend and overnight things change so much that you could never look at the person in the same manner. Why put urself through the pain ? Why take a risk knowing that you can't win ? Why let your emotions and your passion get the best of you? Why trust someone else with something that is so precious to you? Instead be aloof, be zen, be at peace.

Fallin out

Losing touch, Losing track.
Moving on, Moving away.
Forgetting faces, Forgetting places.
Faint memories, Faint feelings.
Something to reminisce, Something to cherish.
Experience gathered, lesson learned.
This life is too long and the world is too small for us to not meet again. Hopefully we can share much more than our past when that rendezvous does happen. Yesterday my undying love, today my friend, and between the time from now and that distant tomorrow, the hope of a pleasent surprise - thats who you are. I have to go; but I'll be back. Until next time.

Language falls short

Language I think comes from frustration. It comes from this primordial instinct in humans to congregate into "socio-dependent " masses who need to share their experiences. For example, "watch out for that boulder about to hit your head ! " is the product of one human being caring for other enough to keep him/her away from harm. An "UNH .." or "AHH ! " "GRUNT..." would just not have cut it and after about the third victim being crushed by a giant rock or eaten alive by a saber tooth, the clan/group would decide to come up with a specific symbol or gesture or sound to disctinctly convey the message to the soon-to-be victim. As and when human life became more complicated, new words were created and added to human vocabulary to express newly discovered feelings. Some of these words are so general and well known that it generates the exact same response in all human beings. For example, "killing another human being is wrong" comes from an experience of penance and guilt. The reason I know that killing is wrong is because I have thousands of years of human experience to draw on. Human beings before me have killed and society has remembered the series of unpleasent feelings triggered by those deaths for everybody involved. So after a 100 thousand years when our species talks about murder we understand each other perfectly well - it generates a singular response, unique and distinctive. In the same way there are intangible things that we feel and are totally unable to express. "Love ", I think, takes the cake for this one. Although there are similar experiences that human beings have shared while in love/what they thought was love, no one can seem to agree or zone in on that one particular response/reaction/experience that would gurantee that this could be nothing else but "Love". That is where language falls short and we need gestures, physical contact and various actions to complete the void. Holding hands, kissing, the need to make love other than reasons of pro-creation, day-dreaming about your significant other, bringing them flowers, buying them something nice, just being content to be in each other's company - all these things don't require the use of words. However, all these gestures fall short of communicating the exact feeling, the magnitude of the pleasure, the magnitude of the happiness that you are feeling and want to share with your companion. Thus the confusion, the heart break, the not knowing what to do, the trial and error of dating. I mean think about it, for a comment like, " I would never sleep with a person unless I was sure that she was the one"; Who is The One ? What are her characteristics ? What do you want to be sure of ? I guess the most common answer to all these questions would be: attachment. If I'm attached to the person at some level that is beyond the platonic concern of caring for one human as another, then it is ok to be intimate - keep in mind I'm not talking about parent/children relationships and so forth; whole other story I don't wanna get into. Attachment however, is so realtive. For some people, sex is fucking and they don't get attached at all. For others like me the story is a bit different. But anyway, I think thats rambling enough. Need to go start the day. I guess a good closing statement to the world would be, "good luck with all that ! "

Crystal Clear 

Rocks are my diving board (Hunting) 

KADAK ! (Hunting) 

I really need a shower (Hunting) 

We keepin it real in the woods (Hunting) 

Much harder than it looks. (Hunting) 

Don't laugh at my boots. (Hunting) 

Wish I actually killed something (Hunting) 

Reno 911 Tom (Hunting) 

Bushwhacking through (Hunting) 

XXTREEEEM Danger ! (Hunting) 

A river runs through it (Hunting) 

This is what Red Riding Hood saw ! ( Hunting) 

Jungle boy Jeff (Hunting) 

What we went to hunt (Hunting) 

First stop - Ironton (Hunting) 

Need Bullets ? (Hunting) 

From the look out point (Hunting) 

Bowman Tommy (Hunting) 

work stuff

1.2.1 Web application framework
Alternative A: Java Server Face.
Alternative B: Struts
JavaServer Faces is the framework for building user interface components in web applications. It focuses on the view tier of a Model-View-Controller architecture, while providing enough controller capability to write simple to moderately complex applications.
Jakarta Struts is an open-source framework for developing J2EE web applications. It uses and extends the Java Servlet API to encourage developers to adopt an MVC architecture.
1.2.2 View Implementation
Alternative A: JSP
Alternative B: XSLT
Java Server Pages (JSP) technology provides a simplified, fast way to create dynamic web content by embedding Java code with HTML. JSP technology enables rapid development of web-based applications that are server and platform-independent.
XSLT is a functional language designed to perform transformations on XML documents. The JavaBean which contains the dynamic data can be serialized to XML and then transformed to HTML using the XSLT template, which contains the look & feel for the XML document.
1.3 Communication to application clients
According to the business requirement 4.1.2, the customer should be able to access their Order Status information via mySBC’s Check Order Status Tab. A communication interface should be designed for application clients, like mySBC, (SWOT, and PRM in the future) to communicate with COS.
Alternative A: EJB (Enterprise JavaBean)
Alternative B: Web Services
Alternative C: JMS
The Enterprise JavaBean architecture is a server component architecture for the development and deployment of component-based distributed business applications. The client application can easily invoke the EJB business method using a EJB client proxy obtained through a JNDI look up. The communication between EJB and its client occurs over RMI/IIOP.