The Versatile Blogger

Hello......!!!

I was out of touch of blogging for a while. Final year of college was totally different from the previous 3 years. So fast, so busy, so hectic. Also, many good things happened and now I have a handful of good memories about college life. All thanks to my 4 friends. College life was a book of regrets, if you had asked me last year. But now, my regrets are down to one... not being close to them earlier. That would have solved most of my problems.

Well... It's no use crying over spilled milk.

About 4 months back, I had received a so-called blog award. It is more like an honour. Thank you Devan, for choosing this blog for the honour of The Versatile Blogger Award. His blog can be accessed here: eurEKA, devan expresses...!

It seems there are a few rules and conditions for the acceptance of this award, which are:

1.Paste this award on your blog.

2. Thank the person who gave you this award.

3. Pass this award to 15 fellow bloggers. 

4. Share 7 random facts about yourself.

Choosing 15 fellow bloggers was a tough task. Actually, I don't know much blogs. Here's a random list of blogs I selected for passing on this award:

1. an accidental Engineer..

2. മായാലോകം

3. The PsyKiK Writer

 4. ബഷീറിയന്‍ നുറുങ്ങുകള്‍

5. ജീവിതത്തില്‍ നിന്ന്

6. വളപ്പൊട്ടുകള്‍

These are the seven Random Facts about me:

1. Can't stand spelling, pronunciation and grammar mistakes.

2. Hate it when people throw away wastes (even chocolate wrappers) carelessly or spit on the road.

3. Use a lot of punctuations and smiley while typing.

4. Can sleep early, but can't get up early :P

5. Extreme fan of Julia Roberts, Sushmita Sen, Nana Patekar (I was never able to see or contact them), Padma Subramaniam, Divya Dutta, Nandita Das, Rie Sinclair, Madhuri Dixit, Surya Dinkar and so on (forgetting the fact that the latter had to block me in Facebook, I've contacted or at least seen once all these 6 people)

6. Love TV series like FRIENDS, House MD, Avatar-The Last Air Bender, Vampire Diaries, I Dream Of Jeannie, General Hospital etc.

7. Really really hate this name of my blog, cRAZY THOUGHTS oF aNU. Will change it soon :) 

Congratulations to you guys... Pass it on...... :)

A Tribute To Shreya Ghoshal

 

Translation:

This Bengali lass, who came into our lives yesterday,

is the new Voice and Face of Kerala!

Hats off to you, sister!!!

Oh! BTW, I had tweeted Shreya Ghoshal this photo. She replied with a thanks and I got more than 50 retweets for that :)

The Oprah Mahal

MY LIFE HAS BEEN A TAJ MAHAL.

-OPRAH WINFREY

What does that even mean??? Well… Here are some possible guesses of what’s in her mind…

Would you dare to spot out  the differences???

1. She was born in 1631 (Ooh! She must be older than the oldest living turtle!)
2. After Oprah’s birth, the fingers of the doctors and nurses were chopped so that they would not deliver another master piece like her.
3. Her dad created her in loving memory of his 3^rd wife.
4. Around 20,000 people worked on her.
5. 1000s of elephants were employed to transport materials required to construct her (Well... at least she doesn't look so heavy)
6. She appears in different colours during different times of the day (Hmm... That explains 'the changing moods of women' stuff)
7. She is a mausoleum.
8. Some important studies reveal that she is sinking.
9. She attracts about 2-4 million visitors annually with over 200,000 from overseas.
10. She costs around 100 million American dollars (That may be true)
11. She is one of the wonders of the world (I should agree to that!)
12. The pollution is turning her skin yellow, which was originally white.
13. Acid rain deteriorates her.
14. The legendary musician A R Rahman has composed an Oprah Anthem, supposedly to make people aware of the importance of saving the great OW.

There are so much more possibilities to think of, as long as she doesn't cares to explain what she actually had in her mind!

Anyway, I'm happy that Oprah Winfrey at least cared to visit India. (And this, most probably, is going to be her last visit too!)

My Experiments With Twitter Part 3

1^st part of this post was about the advantages and disadvantages of Twitter.

Those who would like to go through it, please follow this link:

 My Experiments With Twitter Part 1 

2^nd part describes my reasons for joining twitter and how one can identify Twitter addiction. It can be viewed at:

My Experiments With Twitter Part 2

To know what twitter is or for a basic guide to twitter, you can refer to one of my later posts in this blog:
A Guide To Twitter

 This post is going to be the last post in "My Experiments With Twitter" series. It covers some of the Celebrity replies, retweets and favorited tweets in my credit. They are not the direct screenshots. I've linked together the conversations simply using MS Paint. This post is a bible/guiding light/source of inspiration to all those who are dying to get a reply/retweet from your favorite celebrity.I'll be the happiest person if this post helps at least one guy to succeed in this sacred mission! (Please let me know if you find it helpful)

The 1^st surprise given to me in Twitter was by South Indian film star Rima Kallingal. She favorited my first ever tweet to her!:

Music director Narayananunni is also there on twitter in this handle: @vettila. I was so excited that I instantly sent him a screenshot of it! This was a good start. That day I got the first impulse to try for more and compile it in a blog post.

After that, I tried a dozen times to get a reply or retweet from Rima. But only recently I got a chance to strike her, when she became active in Mullaperiyar issue. She retweets all mentions to her on that topic. I got not only a retweet, but also a reply:

Yes! Creativity plays an important role for surviving in Twitter... :D ;) 3:)

There's this wonderful lady, who is a gifted actor, talented anchor, and, unlike certain other celebrities, cares to reply to her fans. She has replied to more than 10 tweets of mine... and she is one of my favorite personalities, DIVYA DUTTA!
Her first tweet to me :))

  I guess DD & Shreya Ghoshal suffer from insomnia; they are active in twitter usually during the hours of darkness:

DD also has a refined collection of such cool pics:

But it's so sad that her true potential is never esteemed:

Padmashri Dr Resul Pookutty is not a stranger to this blog. We've known him before. Ref: Resul Pookutty reloaded......!!! (Malayalam article on an interview with him for college magazine)

When the 1^st picture with him was clicked, I was standing at the right end of that pic. Thank God, the pic wasn't clear. Before his bodyguard clicked the next pic, I directly requested Mr Pookutty, "Sir, can I please stand near you for this pic?" He replied, "Ladies always have first preference... Come, stand here, close to me :)"

This historical photo is there in our college magazine.
I'm the one holding a paper:

 My next prey was Raima Sen. I had seen her Bengali film "The Japanese Wife" some months back and loved it a lot, but, only recently did I know that she was Raima Sen, the daughter of actor Moon Moon Sen, sister of actor Riya Sen, and a noted actor herself! (Sorry, my knowledge about Hindi films is limited)
Raima Sen has also starred opposite Narain in the Malayalam film Veeraputhran.

Raima Sen's birthday was on November 7^thand I had sent a tweet wish. She tweeted "Thank you twitterverse". That was a general thanks but I wanted something more, something special:

Without knowing that he is the famous Malayalam director, I once had a tweet chat with Lijo Jose Pellissery. Finally, when I realized it was him:

A RT from PETA India when #5words was a trend:

The following tweet was something I had sincerely longed for. The gorgeous lady, the sensation and youth icon of India, SHREYA GHOSHAL! She has a lot of followers and gets thousands of tweets every day. So it was a difficult task for me to get her attention. Many a times I tried, but in vain.
Finally with the help of another Twitter friend @vin2ktalks, I achieved it!
Here's how we won her attention:

yippee!!!!!!

Hard work, sincerity, consistency, determination and optimism pays 0:)
 This amazing lady recently surprised me with a reply. It was totally unexpected and, literally, I was jumping with joy!

 For this tweet, I also got some 15 retweets!

There are some fake accounts too in Twitter. One of them was that of South Indian film star Ananya. It was clear from his/her tweets that (s)he is fake. The logic is simple: 9 out of his/her 10 tweets say she's original. From the psychological point of view we can confirm that's duplicate Ananya.

In that direct message (DM) she sent me, she said that she put up the pic so everyone will understand that the account belongs to original Ananya. But that pic was available to anyone who knew to use Google Image search :P
I still remember the envy of some tweeple when duplicate Ananya followed me! Ha!
Rima Kallingal verified that Ananya was not on twitter and within a short time this dupe account got deleted!

---

End of the original post.

---

After publishing this post, I sent a personal tweet to everyone who was a part of it. Raima Sen replied again:

Sanjeev Thomas is AR Rahman's lead guitarist and a singer/composer himself. He sang "Nenjinullil" from the Malayalam film "Diamond necklace" and also did the theme song of CCL Kerala Tuskers. I knew him before. Long story......
Anyway,

Madhuri Dixit started her twitter account only recently. She never used to reply to any tweets and I don't expect replies when tweeting her. But one very fine day,

That was a good start for her. Now she often replies to fans!

Twitter is not only a medium for fun and connecting with friends, but also a great platform for interaction with different organizations.
I connected with Greenpeace via Twitter.

  Managed to get some RTs from Shashi Tharoor, Resul Pookkutty and Raima Sen and hence my petition to Railway Minister got promoted.
(Ref: Working For A Good Change )

RT from Shashi Tharoor

 Slowly I broadened my reach to international level too ;) ;) ;)

Rie Sinclair is an artist whom I discovered only recently. She is not only one of the best singers ever, but also a song writer, music composer, guitarist, model and many more...and she has made her mark in all these fields! Her songs were Emmy nominated twice, in 2006 and in 2012.
Tweets from my favourite songstress 

 You should check out her song Where You Are. It's awesome!!!

PS:Don't believe her. The lyrics I assumed was utter rubbish!

This lady is amazingly talented. I'm a total fan of hers, perhaps her biggest fan ever! No other tweet has ever made me as happy as this one did!

Thank you Rie, for your love, for inspiring me, and for your eternal music :)

Dana Delany... the 2-times Emmy award winning actress...
Though she's not so famous, I seriously think she's one of the best! Her role as Katherine Mayfair in the super hit TV series Desperate Housewives mesmerized me! She is also the lead in the ongoing TV series Body Of Proof. Dana gives voice to Superman's girlfriend Lois Lane and Batman's ex-fiancée Andrea Beaumont in the animated series.

 Later I discovered that India Post has withdrawn IR coupon service and I contacted Dana again. In a day she tweeted:

 I bet there's no other actor who does so much for fans!
 Dana has restored many people's faith that celebrities will reply to their tweets! I love asking her silly questions. And the best part is that she mostly answers! :D

Isn't she awesome...???
Quoting a friend, "I could turn lesbian for her!"
This is the least I could do: 75 Reasons Why I Love Dana Delany

 S Club 7 ( Miami 7) is one of the bands that introduced me to western music, bands and big labels. (Ref: Serendipity: A Vid That Was Once My Fav). Rachel Stevens was always my favourite among the 7 members of the band. She was also the runner-up of the 6th season of BBC's reality show Strictly Come Dancing. She usually don't reply to fans; she just RTs it. I've been begging for her reply at an average rate of 20 tweets per week :P
And unlike other fans, I got a "hi" and a kiss too ;)

Well... On a december midnight I was having an sms chat with my friend. Along with texting, she was also watching the film "Samay", starring Sushmita Sen. I told her that I love Sushmita Sen a lot, but she never replies to my tweets :( :( :( and my friend teased me saying that the reason she love Sushmita is that Sush doesn't reply to insane tweeters like me :/
I took it as a challange and instantly tweeted Sushmita (even though I wasn't sure of getting a reply). Today morning, I was thrilled to see that Sushmita has replied to that tweet!!!
From her previous tweets it was clear that she plays a major role in grooming the Miss Universe contestant from India, the adorable lady, Shilpa Singh. Sushmitaji had also shared a link to Vote for Shilpa.

Moral: Strike while the iron is hot!

If you've watched at least one episode of the TV show Gossip Girl you would have definitely noticed the character Lily van der Woodsen, played by Kelly Rutherford. I love Kelly, but not in a 'I love Dana Delany' or 'I love Meryl Streep' way. She is so sweet, cute, funny and I love her smile, look, fashion and some of her trademark expresions. Still trying to figure out why she replied to this tweet!!!

 
That's all folks :) :) :)
Other than celebrity tweets, I also got many friends on twitter. If I mention all their names, that would be content for another post titled "All those who made 'My Experiments With Twitter' series Possible!" Once again thank you every one who made this post. Sorry for some of the bitter fights I had on twitter.

This series, My Experiments With Twitter, is in particular, dedicated to two of my special friends/brothers @vaisakhvsk and @vin2ktalks.

A word of gratitude to my real-life friend, @nikh_nk who helped me abandon my old handle @aNU_rELOADED and choose the new one, @aNUbOMB :)

I also thank all others whose names are not mentioned here.
And don't be reluctant to contact me if you need any assistance for getting replies. I'll do my best! ;) Thanks again :)

My Experiments With Twitter Part 2

1^st part of this post was about the advantages and disadvantages of Twitter.

Those who would like to go through it, please follow this link:

 My Experiments With Twitter Part 1

It was some 3 years back I started using Twitter. But it seemed an unknown world to me. Not a single friend of mine was using Twitter at that time. Now I would like to share with you some of the reasons why I started tweeting even though none of my friends were in Twitter.

1. The ban on Facebook and Orkut in the computer labs of our college.
2. Inbuilt mobile app for using Twitter.
3. Long and boring study leaves, when I had nothing else to do except exploring new websites, cool apps & software, top rated videos on Youtube, and downloading films.
4. Some of the celebrated, talked over or controversial tweets and media obsession on it.
5. In a hope that, one day, I too might become a celebrated tweeter. ;)
6. Ease for my fans to follow me! :P

Somebody once told me that those things you don’t understand will always seem boring (I guess that ‘somebody’ is me…). Also, the first person I followed on Twitter was a celebrity who had just a namesake account on Twitter. Within weeks, I abandoned Twitter.

Even though I never entered it, that account was linked to my blog and so blog updates were published automatically.

It was during my previous study leave that I re-entered Twitter. Not remembering the old password, I had to reset the password and finally opened.

Practice makes one perfect. So I practiced daily and hence became active in Twitter.Now, how can you check whether you are addicted to twitter universe?

1. You open the web browser and automatically hit ‘T’ on the keyboard, followed by the ‘Enter’ key; obviously, www.twitter.com will be the 1^st option in the auto-suggestions of the search engine.
2. When you create a new mail id, you check the availability of your twitter handle as your new username.
3. You have a tendency to use ‘#’ tags for important or special words/phrases/names even in other social networking sites. E.g. #SaveMullaPeriyar or #Kolaveri.
4. When mention places, you either use 'at' or make sure there's a gap between '@' and place name. E.g.: before you used to type ‘@College’, but now you type ‘at College’ or ‘@ College’. In Twitter, they may refer to other users even though you were talking about a place.
5. You desperately want to get a Bharti Airtel/Reliance/Tata Docomo/Videocon SIM as these alone provide text message notification services in Twitter India.
6. Just after getting up or just before going to bed you check notifications.
7. When you have many tabs opened in the browser window, one of them will definitely be Twitter.
8. Something important/unusual/good happens and you say, “let me tweet about it."
9. (Now this one is my favourite and refers to students like me) You are answering a 15-marks question, which you are supposed to write in more than two answer sheets, but you end up writing less than 140 characters!!!

If any of these applies to you, then you are an addict!

 Next post will be a list of Celebrity replies, retweets and favourites to my tweets. I'm sure that will be useful to at least some twitter freaks :)

My Experiments With Twitter Part 1

This post is the first part of my take on Twitter.

Even though I started a twitter account some 4 years back, I became active and got addicted to it in the past few months. Getting introduced to Twitter without any previous knowledge about it, is like a 2 year old baby being gifted with a playstation.

During a study leave, I created an account. I wasn't left with a choice of username/handle I had in mind, so was forced to take a weird handle. Then I tried my best to understand it. But by that time, study leave got over. So I abandoned Twitter. Actually, I had totally forgotten about it till the recent study leave! I’m sure that many of you had the same experience. But this time I got a study leave of around 2 months, including 10 days of Onam vacation (Advantage of belonging to Kerala), original study leave of about 2 weeks and postponing of exams (thanks to CALICUT UNIVERSITY!). So I decided to explore twitter and understand it better. That’s how I officially entered the wonderful world of tweets!

This post covers some of the advantages and disadvantages of Twitter.

Advantages

1. Simple layout
2. Less  complicated design
3. Easy procedures
4. Simple to use
5. Privacy of personal information (if you prefer that)
6. Most of the present-day cellular phones have inbuilt apps for twitter
7. You can capitalize any letters of username/handle unlike Facebook. No issues such as 1^st letter not capitalized, too many capitals etc.
8. Capitalization doesn’t affect the destination of reply. Eg: instead of @ aNU_9_10_90 you typed @Anu_9_10_90, it still reaches @aNU_9_10_90
9. Ability to follow celebrity updates
10. Let them know what you have to say. Even if they don’t reply, they will read it, provided they know twitter well
11. Rarely, get surprised and delighted to see them reply to your tweets to them (depends on the person you tweet.  Detailed descriptions in later sections)
12. Can verify accounts of important people (though presently Twitter has stopped the verification facility)
13. Any idiot can have followers provided you follow and follow back everyone (will come to the details in later sections)
14. Improve leadership quality (Having followers implies that you are the leader!)
15. Communication with different kinds of people from across the world without revealing your (and of course, their ) identity
16. Simplicity of sharing information (following, followers, tweets, retweets and favourites)
17. Ideas can be expressed in just 140 characters. No need of bloody explanations as in exams
18. Help us to be very efficient with words
19. Teach us to become point-specific
20. Make us capable of using given resources efficiently (and thereby)
21. Train us to manage crises

Disadvantages

1. Only 140 characters allowed in each tweet
2. Chatterboxes cannot survive here
3. Username is restricted to alphabets, numbers and underscores”_”.  Spaces and characters like .#$*>” etc. not allowed
4. Most of the usernames you have in mind would already be in use, finally being forced to end up with some stupid, long names with underscores “_” and numerical characters, like aNU_9_10_90 (that’s my DOB)
5. When replying to or mentioning someone, their username consumes a part of the allowed 140 characters. Eg: if you re replying to aNU_9_10_90, then you type “@aNU_9_10_90 blah blah blah” 13 characters are consumed by the handle
6. This problem occurs mainly with accounts of important people. You cannot be sure whether the account originally belongs to that particular celebrity unless it is a verified account or any of the tweeple (twitter+people) confirms it with the original person.
7. Twitter for mobile phones is not available for all models unless there is an inbuilt app
8. This disadvantage is mainly targeted to the male audience. Gals are less in Twitter (maybe ‘coz we gals find the restriction of 140 characters extremely difficult and bullshit!)

Ha! If I had taken this trouble to write my exams, I would not have had so many arrears to my credits!!!

More details of Twitter to be covered in the coming post……………………

A LOT CAN HAPPEN OVER COFFEE ;)

My article in our college magazine this year, fx991ES
A Lot Can Happen Over Coffee *wink*
(An "A" is printed extra. Don't know what actually happened or who added that)

Please give your frank opinion on this story.
To be very frank, I hadn't liked the story very much. Many of you might not like Aparna asking Richard to keep in touch; they've known hardly for a few hours! This creates an impression (well... to be precise, only in Kerala) that she's not a good girl. When I was about to modify the situations, all my friends who read the rough copy suggested that I needn't make further modifications and that it is better than Silpachechiyude Ormaykku. Hence, that rough copy became my article for the magazine!
Now an explanation to the given problem:
Maybe Aparna too felt that same "UNDEFINED SOMETHING" for Richard...
Maybe because she's more like cool a Chennai girl than a Keralite...
After all, it's just a Fiction, like Silpachechiyude Ormaykku. Come on... cool down... and enjoy the journey with them... B-)
And don't forget... SHARE SOME LOVE... LEAVE A COMMENT.........! :))