Simply had to post this one. The man made some mayhem of his own in the dunk contest and forever rid the misconception that big guys (centers and power forwards 7ft plus) cant dunk well. In the dunk shown above his "superman dunk" he rose from barely a foot inside the free throw line and rose so high that he had to actually chuck the ball into the basket instead of reaching there and dunking it. I mean for flair alone he had to win it. Check out the other dunks if possible, its probably all over youtube by now. And if you're a basketball fan u simply MUST.

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Was just surfing for Grammy news and I came across this article where Natalie Cole, famous singer and daughter of the even more famous Nat King Cole (sensational singer), said that “Winehouse’s wins sends a ‘bad’ message”. I got to be honest I knew there would be someone who says something like this about her wins. And I want to say: GROW UP.

The Grammy’s, of all things, aren’t given on the basis of whose singing, its given on the basis of WHAT they are singing. Be it a drug addict, a cocky rapper or a legend all of them are based (well at least should be based) on their music and music alone. No one can deny the fact that she did make a great album, from what I’ve heard of it it’s different, catchy, more old school, earthy simple tones. Its different and its nice, hell Kanye West, probably the most arrogant guy around, told Mark Ronson (Winehouse’s producer) “You deserve it as much as I do and I deserve it too” now that is as close as anyone is going to get to a compliment from that guy.

Now how is Winehouse’s wins sending ‘bad’ message? Did anybody really think that drugs were the reason she made great music? She’s not Jim Morrison people, she had a good producer and she had talent, pretty simple. As far as her addictions etc goes, she’s paying for her misgivings she’s constantly a tabloid favorite, having shit written about her all over and having people like Ms Cole ruining her perfectly well deserved Grammy’s. Yes, seeing her does send me a message and that is that try my best NOT to be like her, if I must take anything from her it would be how she in spite of having all these things going against her managed to make such great music. And THAT is not a “bad” message. She deserved it so she won it, period.

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Have u ever seen this show on Vh1 called “Then and now”? Nice little show, but I’m not here to talk about the show, I’m here to talk about the thing they play at the start of the show, it’s an interesting little animated opening video of, in their eyes, the evolution of music through the ages. It starts of with a Jimi Hendrix like character playing a little riff then he morphs into a disco character and the tune morphs a bit too, then comes a long haired heavy metal/ hard rock kinda guy who like plays a distorted version of the same tune and then he morphs into a fat blinged out hip hop guy, and that’s the end of the video.

The evolution they’ve portrayed is relevant too – Hendrix and other rock legends ruled in the 60’s then disco took over in the 70’s, then with the death of disco came the rock and heavy metal age with groups like guns n rose, nirvana, metallica etc in the 80’s and 90’s and now, this is the interesting part, has come the “Hip Hope Age”. Well according to them in any case. And I agree with them, I think this is the hip hop revolution, I’m not saying that the other genres are dead or anything. I mean lets face it all through the 60’s 70s and 80’s and 90’s other genres did exist, except that they were less prominent than the controlling genre of that time. And (unfortunately) now is the time of Hip Hop (If you disagree your probably in denial or both deaf and blind).

The question I’m hoping to answer in this post is why? Why is it that people are more in tune these days to hip hop more than anything else? Why is it that more mainstream genre’s are trying to infuse bits of hip hop in them (pop and rnb being HUGE examples)? Somebody said (I think) “the world is going too fast to have time to stop and smell the roses” and I think that’s exactly whats happened to music too.

Think about it, all you have to do in hip hop is remember one tiny little tune, which generally is a small beat, and a main single phrase, generally the name of the song itself. Its true, the music part is plain to hear and as far as lyrics go all that matters is that one phrase (face it no self respecting woman would dance to over half of the hip hop tunes if they cared what they said, its only for hard core fans who are keen to pursue rap or hip hop). Pick any song, 90% chances you’ll see its true.

It’s sad but people don’t have time these days to follow a long elaborate solo or the little picks and bends of a guitar, or the small variances and flows of jazz or the shear dominance of a voice of soul. All I’m hoping now is that genres don’t fade out, like the disco, to being barely followed by a small group of cult fans who people look upon and think “those people are weird”. And just like I hope food wont become a pill someday I hope music wont become any more shorter in the time to come or its just wont seem like music any more…

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Remember the good old days when somebody heard Stephen hawking talk and people went “hey that’s weird.”? But as time went by some hip-hop producer somewhere pressed the wrong button and got a similar robotic voice and somewhere in his tiny brain Paris Hilton went “That’s Hot”. And boom in comes the invasion of weird voices in music (kanye west’s stronger being the best example of the robotic voice).

I think this whole thing started with the Akon featuring Alvin and the chipmunks in “I’m so lonely” ( I know I know it’s an insult to Alvin and the chipmunks but hey it did sound like them). Now akon himself has a weird voice over that with the chipmunk thing I didn’t know if I was listening to a normal song or a song in an animated film. But somehow everybody loved it, then the dude was everywhere, almost everyone featured him sometimes even in stupid things like gwen stefani’s escape where all he did was go “woo hoo hee hoo”. Then comes the real reason why I think Stephen hawking should sing – Tpain (I think Akon’s prodigy). For those of you who are wondering who he is, he’s the guy in kanye wests “Welcome to the good life” song. Now that dude barely sings; he sings something and its digitally mastered to have a huge robotic ting to it, and again people gobbled it up. Now he’s everywhere, his own song bartender, ft akon btw, is a big hit and people are having collaborations with him all over the place.

All this makes me wonder, what the hell do need to have to be in hip hop? DEFENITELY not voice, it was never a big issue in hip hop anyway, face it most of them are there cause the cant sing, even more so now with people digitally adding to the voice. So that’s not it voice doesn’t matter, music is not the issue cause that comes from producers. Lyrics may be? Ha right?! Have u ever actually read those things!! So what is it? Only thing that comes to mind – contacts, period. Well is it just me or is that just plain sad for anything that calls itself a genre of music….

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“IT has ruined Bangalore;” “Look at the congestion and the traffic;” “Culture has taken a toss” (and my favorite); “Youngsters earn too much and have no culture anymore” etc etc. These seem to be the quotable quotes from various discussion groups splashed across the newspapers from day to day. The big question: “Is IT bad for Bangalore?” Before I get into the details, let me just get one thing of my chest: if you (whosoever is reading this) actually thinks that IT is bad for the city what in God’s name can you do about it? IT has been here for a long time and is here to stay, period. Accept it.

Now addressing the question at hand: is IT really bad for Bangalore? Well, obvious things aside one must acknowledge the fact that love it or hate it, IT put Bangalore on the World map. Sure it was the Garden City, the city with great climate and great people etc all this did make Bangalore a well known place but that was in India, tops. And ironically those are the main reasons why IT ended up in Bangalore in the first place. But like someone truly said “Any publicity is good publicity” and so slowly with the advent of IT and the outsourcing biz terms like “Bangalored” (someone whose lost his/her job to outsourcing) came up and one by one it became the IT capital of the country and got a spot on the world map. Now you can’t say that’s a bad thing.

But all good things to come at a price. The problem that Bangalore had is plain and simple- it grew too fast for its own good. Companies poured in, job opportunities increased and boom population explosion. Then came the problems that everyone complains about: Traffic: reason is the city grew up so fast and was so obsessed with getting more famous that there wasn’t any time to improve the roads and other infrastructure. Can you blame the government at the time for it? Sure if you are a very cynical man, because sure there might have been stuff the govt could’ve done but things happened too fast and we all know things can go wrong when that happens. The then in charge Krishna govt did do its bit and his regime is still considered a good one by most in the city.

Then the next most common problem that everyone complains about: the congestion and the inflow of “non-Karnataka” people: reason: now like every Hollywood celebrity knows you can’t get famous and not attract the paparazzi, not that I’m comparing the “non-Karnataka” people to paparazzi but basically I’m trying to say that you cant get famous and not attract attention to yourself. Be it person or place that gets famous others are going to want to find out what the big deal is all about. Best example, all the people going to America to study or get a job why is it? Simple really it got famous and that’s where the money is (was) and we want a piece of the pie. Are those saying that “non-Karnataka” people are bad saying that their kids shouldn’t go to America or any other country or state to earn more money? Think about that.

Then of course my favorite the “youngsters are earning too much and losing their culture” excuse. Consider this scenario: I’m an employer I come to a parent and say “I’m not going to pay your son or daughter too much money, I’ll just pay him enough to keep him/her going, or else they’ll lose their culture!!” now if you rightfully say that a parent would agree to that then all is not well with you up there. A parent is always going to want their kids to earn well to do well in their lives and similarly youngsters are going to want to earn a lot of money too, for many reasons. Now if they do something “bad” with their money or “lose their culture” because of the money they have to spend its not really IT’s fault is it? Its up to how the kids were bought up that’ll affect how they use their money, period.

I almost forgot another crowd favorite “crime in the city has gone up”. IT’s fault? Why not? Now you must know we don’t live in a perfect world, Eve did bite the apple and evil and misery does exist in the world today. And a city coming on the world map does attract the wrong kind of attention too. What can you do about it? Beef up security, better safety measures, better police patrolling etc etc. and unless I’m mistaken these things come under the police dept and the government and city council NOT surprise surprise IT.

All things aside IT has helped Bangalore, IT has also brought some problems with it. Now the problem that actually happened was that Bangalore was the first city in India that all this drama happened to at such a large scale. Due to which like it or hate it, it became a sort of guinea pig, (no insult intended) all I’m trying to say is it became the test subject from which other cities looking to be a part of the IT boom learnt from. And it learnt a lot too: what to do, what not to do, how to prepare etc. case and point Hyderabad: improved the infrastructure and roads before the IT boom hit it, provided the infrastructure necessary. How did it learn all this? By watching Bangalore and what happened there.

So before you go answering another newspaper questionnaire or survey asking if “IT is bad for Bangalore?” and before you compare it with Hyderabad etc and before you get all set to point the finger, look around you and to yourself you might see many targets hiding in the bushes so as not to get the finger pointed at them.

PS: Like it?, Hate it?, got an opinion on it?... comment it

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Everyone has at sometime been so angry that they just wanna break something. When something you've been looking forward to doesn't work out, something else follows up and thats when the chain starts, one thing goes wrong then the next and boom you're so pissed you just wanna punch someone's lights out.

One thing that has always managed to calm me down was pure metal, i mean i hear that distortion guitar on full blast and someone like Hetfield shout out from behind it, ah now that brings bliss sheer bliss. But thats the strange thing isn't it, logically speaking something more calm more soft should generally soothe you back to normal. sure smooth calm music does that too, but not the same way that metal does. Metal gives u a satisfaction like you've actually let all of that pent up anger out. where as smooth music just plains pushes all that anger under the carpet.

I wonder why metal does that though? i mean think about it, you're angry and angry, enraged music calms u down. My theory? well i think its purely because when you're surrounded by that kind of music you're surrounded by that amount of anger so at that instance the amount of anger in you and the amount of anger around you is equal almost. So in your own little world you're normal now, as opposed to the "normal world" where you would be one angry guy. but in your angry world of metal your normal and i think its that thought that calms u down eventually and the anger just flows out of ya and boom you can get back to the real world.

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