so which animal are you ?

few days back, Mr.K was treated to a very nice blog "On Humans" by Mr.Monologue (http://mindless-monologue.blogspot.com/).. it was quite an irony, that when Mr.K was reading the blog, he was also listening to Pink Floyd's 1977 - "the forgotten album" - animals.

animals was roger waters' most personal take on "us humans". inspired by Orwell's "Animal Farm", waters came up with a brilliantly written masterpiece. it was darker than the dark side of the moon, lyrically stronger than "the wall". the orchestration in the album was brilliant, the guitars was terrific and yet it failed miserably - the failure that made waters hide behind the wall..

Mr.K has his own views on why it failed but first lets look at what waters was talking about. the album metaphorically looks at humans as three groups of animals..
a) sheeps - the mindless, powerless people who get abused day in and day out and don't even realize that they are abused, they have become slaves to the abuse and quite enjoy it,
b) the dogs - the greedy, ever hungry, ruthless and materialistic ones, who will do anything to get to where they want. these people don't have feelings or emotions. they work only on a materialistic level.
c) the pigs - these are the most interesting breed - the ones who are in abundance in this world, that waters called them "three different ones"
the grade a kind are the supersmart, superevil, sauron/chancellor palpatin kinds - those who prey with others minds, the ones who train dogs and get them to do the things for themselves
the grade b kind are the hypocritic, gutless, integrity and value less, "the ones who will sell themselves for their own benefits"..in short these are the ones who are the most pathetic of all humans..they are in one word "untrustworthy"..remember they are hypocrites, so they give inconsistent opinion on similar happenings in different ways for their own advantage..the ones that you have to fear the most, cause there are so many around you and you get to know that you were around one, only when you get hit by a tornado.
the grade c kind are the "dirty ones". the ones who entertain themselves at others expense..they think dirt, they eat dirt and they live in dirt..and make others lives a misery by constantly throwing dirt..
the one thing that waters says that binds all these three kinds is that "they are all ones who understand only feelings/emotions that matter to them and get overtly sensitive, when things upset them but they are just so blind to what happens to others..they, my friends are the most vile"..and they are constantly evolving to be much better in their job :)". of them the lyrics go..

"Ha ha charade you are.You house proud town mouse,Ha ha charade you are.You’re trying to keep feelings off the street.You’re nearly a real treat,All tight lips and cold feet,And do you feel abused?'

for all its truth, the album did not sell much because it was far too abusive of ourselves and us humans can never take that. we have so much problems/pains in our lived that we need an outlet for our joy..and Mr.K had his thoughts turned to joy by two things..one the way the monologue ended
"some of the more educated-and-the-so-called-well-bred people from all over have left me disappointed and shattered my faith that educations makes people more thoughtful, it is incidents like these that make me happy for mankind"

and the other - jack black on tv..tell you what, while you figure out "what kinda animal you are " {my thinking is most of us are polymorphic - but lets just try not to be pigs }", let me go get myselves some more of mr.black and smaller pleasures of our lives..

Cuban,Precious..

one of the blogs that Mr.K frequents is www.blogmaverick.com. this particular blogger has a curious mix of writings on digital media and nba, an extremely odd mix some would say. at first glance, it would look like some "maverick"s ranting..but keep reading and you get fascinated. more so once you realize that the blogger goes by the name "mark cuban",the billionaire owner of Dallas Mavericks and HDNet - the guy who made so much money during digital boom of the late 90's. his mode of travel - my friends - a cool personal boeing that would give mr.president some food for thought..

an interesting thing that happened last week was a blog post by cuban..cuban has always been someone, who is shamelessly forthright. never one to hide this thoughts and a strong believer of the "land of liberty's first amendment". in the post, cuban let rip his thoughts on the way nba playoffs officiating works..the gist of it was that nba was being too socialistic trying to reward a lot of people and ending up screwing up the system. what happened after this post was more interesting..

a) the powers that be in nba fined cuban 200,000$ dollars for his blog comments..
b) the officials then went far too soft on the mavs's next two games against the spurs and the mavs find themselves one win in their homecourt short of western conference finals..

this was one killer corporate strategy, wasnt it - rant and sound like a whiner but float seeds of doubt on your opponents - lose the battle, but win the war..sun tzu would have been proud of our maverick..come across like an idiot, boot yourself a bill of 200,000$ and end up winning 10 million dollars for each game win cause the officals are afraid to piss you off now..the most striking thing about this is the medium used - "blog". dare i say friends, do we have a new media that has the potential to rival media houses..people like cuban are taking it to the next level, so don't stay behind - get yourself a nice drink and setup yourselves in blogspot and blogaway ;)..

<>

the other unrelated part of this blog now deals with one of the most endearing and at the same time, most hated character in the history of english fiction " gollum smeagol"..the embodiment of "multiple personality disorder, bipolar, schizophrenic, twin faced .." there is a lot out there to know about gollum's story and his love for "his precious"..but what does provoke some thought is "He hated it and loved it, as he hated and loved himself. He could not get rid of it. He had no will left in the matter - LOTR". makes mr.K wonder if all of us did have a "gollum inside their smeagol".. a gollum that is created by desire, attachment and wants..we all have our "precious" and we all have our "we needs it, we needs our precious, we hates it, we hates thieves" times..

the precious is laughing and making a fool of us..find a hobbit soon to destroy it..:)

ps: have added a wonderful blog in the more blogs section. - it is run by a pal and ex employee of the firm..way to go labnol - labnol.blogspot.com