Amazing is the key word

Another very interesting trip by Guy; this time on an aircraft carrier - boy this fellow is cool !

Lap it up here

Another very interesting site - beware - you might end up wasting a lot of time here.

The thought behind 'Working from Home'

It's a bold concept and has many perspectives - some of which dont necessarily make sense to everyone.

After a 4 month haul of trying to work from home, i've come to a conclusion - you can work from home if you have a predefined set of work that requires a predefined number of hours. If you are in a profession that dramatically changes every minute and demands extreme attention and focus - then working from home is absolutely not an option.

Pros:

- Time seems to be your best friend. You can get up when you like, shower or not and decide when you want to break for tea.
- you can sleep in the afternoon and work late nights - maximize productivity.
- Take out time outs for a walk, a stroll in the garden or just a few songs on VH1 - it's all worth it

Cons:

- Too many distractions. They are just too many !
- Ability to interact with others. Since you are alone at home - you lose out on valuable collaboration through interaction with colleagues.
- 'Going to work' feeling. You don't feel you're going to work, ergo you are left with a strange feeling of emptiness at the end of the day. Since you never left the house. It takes some getting used to.
- Invasion into private space. You will have professional and private battle lines crossing into each other. This means you're child or dog will start wailing the moment that important call from the boss comes in.

This is truly a personal choice and the support of colleagues and friends plays a vital role.

This guy is too much !

Jeff Dunham is simply awesome ! He has too many voices and personalities in him.

Wonder if i should try out ventriloquism

ROCK ON - poor direction but excellent Music

For a while now i've been contemplating on the genius of Pakistani Music. I've always wondered why and how are they able to generate the music of Strings and Jal (and countless other similar bands).

After Rock On - i know we have it too. Some of the compositions are simply amazing.

However, the direction and story are still weak. That's most unlike a Farhan Akhtar movie. They have failed to glorify the career of a musician much to the fact that in the end it's just another great live show !

Farhan should have taken inputs from so many great music videos where the bands are potrayed as gods with instruments. Great Camera Angles and lighting was missing. I was expecting some great camera work. But visually the movie is not impressive at all.

But the music should take care of that. Very refreshing, very lively and Farhan can sing for sure !

Brilliant one time watch.

Talent defined

I consider myself an mediocre guitarist. But i think i have a taste for sound and could be a good musician if i dedicate my life to it. Why i don't do that - is best left undiscovered.

Today i read about how to go from 'air guitaring' and become a musician. The author says that to be a good musician - you need to listen to lots of different songs and practice them on the guitar. He goes on to say that you need to spend lots of cash and put in odious hours of practice to get close to what your favorite bands sound on stage. He says go to google, download tabs and start practicing. Soon you should be able to play like a pro on stage.

You'd say the article is pathetic and i probably should have stopped reading midway. Believe me - i DID - there were actually 2 parts to this crap.

But that's not what got me thinking.

I recently sat through a George Michael Concert at Wembley. No - it was only on TV ! I wish... yeah well ... there were only about 13K people. But then i have seen artists pulling in over 100K people for concerts. GnR, Metallica, Ozzy, even Morrison and floyd can rope in about 50K. Shakira gets about 30K plus. A 1 year long world tour of U2 generates about USD 800 M !!

This is not insane - it's a perfect price for excellent talent.

Before musicians become artists, there is an intrinsic core that needs to relate to sound. Not every good guitarist can be a musician. But every good musician can be a good guitarist. This applies to all art and sports to a certain extent. I think no other professional excellence caters to this. Everything else can be taught, practiced and excelled at.

But if you look at history - any superstar or sportstar has not reached that level of success cause he wanted to be rich and 'learned' the art he sells. He gets there cause his 'core' intrinsically has that art and he just refines it and makes money out of it. Tiger woods is not an excelled golfer. He is excellent at understanding the dynamics of a Golf ball, the club, wind, gravity, and friction on grass. He can toss a golf ball and catch it with a putter. He hits a 250 yrd freeway and shatters glass on a golf cart cause it was put there for target practice !

No matter how good you train and how well you practice, sports and art are2 professions where the cream always rises to the top. The unfortunate thing is that you dont get to choose...