What Happened to the Cartoons?!?

The Singing Dino, Barney

Has anyone noticed the kind of cartoons that are on air these days?!? Why the hell are all the cartoons so sickeningly lovey-dovey?!? Kids, these days, seem to be watching shows like Sponge Bob and other weird stuff like Barney, which seems to be a modern version of Sesame Street run by a big pink singing dinosaur!

The Talking Sponge


What happened to those awesome shows like ThunderCats, Voltron and Grandizer? How we kids used to jump with joy when the good guys kick some bad guy ass to kingdom come and save the earth over and over again! We grew up with cartoons that had attitude and fired us up. Who among us has not ever wanted the, ThunderCat Sword, Sword of Omens?!? Heck I was always squealing for it anytime we went to the mall!

Example of a REAL cartoon!


Now all kids have to watch is a talking sponge and a pink dinosaur that is happily running about singing songs! YUCK!! Talk about the pussification of the next generation! The only decent shows these days are Ben 10 and The Secret Saturdays and even those seem to lack the attitude the old shows had.

People are so stuck up over violence on TV that they are too damn scared to let their kids watch even good quality action cartoons! Of course, it would be irresponsible to expose kids to everything that on TV, but please, completely isolating them from everything that shows action and battle and exposing them to only colorful lovey-dovey stuff is senseless!

I mean think about it… What’s a lil guy gonna do when he lies awake in his bed? Become his favorite superhero and kick some bad guy ass, or imagine he is running around with a big pink singing dinosaur?

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2010
04/12
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Not Believing is not a Belief!


I am sick and tired of people refusing to accept my lack of belief as a neutral position despite plainly telling them so. People seem to think that non belief in a god is the same as believing in no god and therefore a belief and atheism a religion. This is absolutely ludicrous! Not believing in a god can never be a belief because, as the words spell out, ‘Not believing’ is the very absence of a belief.

Would one say that not collecting stamps is a hobby or that not playing football is a sport? Of course not. Why? Because not collecting and not playing describe the absence of an action that translates into a hobby or a sport. In the absence of that action, nothing remains that can be attributed to a hobby or a sport.

Another blow to this line of thinking (I can’t even bring myself to call it logic!) is that, if absence of a belief is a belief and hence a religion, then a Christian would have multiple religions. One for the absence of belief in the deities of every other religion and every fictional characters ever created. A religion for the absence of belief in pixies, another for fairies, another for the flying spaghetti monster and so on. I hope the absurdity of calling the absence of a belief a belief is clear now.

Although there may be people who actively believe that there is no god, I do not hold that position. I simply do not believe in a god. I make no statement of whether or not a god exists. I am still waiting for evidence for the existence of a god. Until such evidence has been found I simply do not believe.

However, when one refers to religion and their models of god, that’s a whole new ball game. Religion does not speak of an obscure vague idea of god. Its theology is very specific giving specific attributes to its god. One only has to scrutinize these attributes to evaluate the existence of that particular being. For example, based on the various accepted attributes of the Christian God, it is fairly a simple exercise to arrive at the conclusion that such a god cannot exist. I reject models of gods based on this logic.

However, I accept that this does not mean a god cannot exist and hence hold on to the neutral position of not believing in a god.

2010
04/08
CATEGORY
Religion
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Lungis in Trouble!

Came across this piece from the forum I frequent. Thanks Jonyboy!

The Sharjah Government seems to be stirring shit up. It seems that men wearing lungis is a violation to their decency.

DUBAI: It may be the traditional drape of millions of Indians but the ‘humble lungi’ has attracted the wrath of authorities in Sharjah as the police is reportedly cracking down on men wearing the dress in public places.

There has, however, been no official communication to this effect.

Local reports said an Asian man was arrested and interrogated by police patrols in Sharjah a few days ago for wearing lungi in public.

He was told not to wear the dress in public. The news has had mixed reactions from Indians in the UAE even from those who rarely venture out in the traditional wear.

Yup... Its very offensive!

So apparently, its all fine and dandy to wear white night gowns with weirdass head gears that they keep flipping here and there even while driving at 200 km/h, but wearing lungis is a big no no. Talk about double standards!

Apparently, this is cool...

2010
04/08
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You Dont Watch Sports?!?

Have you had people stare at you in disbelief when you tell them you don’t watch sports? It seems to be a guy thing to proudly state that he watches this sport or that one. I am not against that. You can watch whatever you want. But when people ask me what kind of a person does not watch sports, it pisses me off!

Ever since the IPL started I seem to be bumping into people who keep track of every game, every player and every record as if they are walking billboards of the biggest craze in India. Frankly I don’t see what the hype is all about. In my opinion, cricket and its players are over rated in India. Its just a guy hitting a ball, that was thrown in a funny manner, with a funny stick while another dozen players run around to catch it and throw it back. I just don’t enjoy watching that stuff. In fact I don’t enjoy watching another guy play a game and I definitely don’t feel hitting a ball around a field qualifies a person for the status of a demi god.

But hey, if you like watching it, by all means please continue. You can watch all the cricket or tennis you want and feel sad about Sania Mirza marrying a Pakistani cricketer. You can soak in all the gossip you can get your hands on about every cricketer you can think of. You can also listen to what Tiger Woods has to say even though you don’t know what the fuck golf is anyway. You won’t have me tell you what a bloody waste of time it is, well, unless you are using my TV. Just don’t expect me to be all excited everytime you tell me that Yuvraj or some other cricketer hit a sixer. If he can hit a six while on his knees with his right hand tied behind his back, then maybe I will watch it once or twice before deleting it.

2010
04/05
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Meat is Back!

Meat is finally back on the menu! After having braved one of the most grueling weekends of Christianity, I am so glad to have some meat back in my diet!

2010
04/05
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Is the Pope an Idiot?

I have been meaning to put up this post ever since the pope apologized for all the sex abuses of minors the Catholic Church has been involved in. Well sure the guy apologized for the misbehavior of his priests but then he goes around and takes a pot shot at secularism. According to the Pope it is the creeping influence of liberal, secular society that caused the priests to lose self control.

WTF?!?

Let’s not blame the condition of celibacy put forth by the church that stifles natural tendencies of man, let’s not blame a system that gives excessive powers to men, let’s just blame the secular society. Because hey, when you are in doubt, blame someone else! Right?

I am surprised people take this guy very seriously at all. This is the guy who went to Africa, a place where AIDS seems to have a strangle hold and tells people that the use of condoms will not help eradicate AIDS. Here is a grown man with so much influence telling people not to use a product that has been proven to be highly effective in preventing AIDS.

This is the same person who condemns non believers for causing global warming. Let’s forget, for a minute, the fact that global warming is a myth perpetrated by the likes of Al Gore who only have interest in their own personal agenda. Here is a guy who believes the Bible blindly when it says that God gave man dominion over the earth. This guy believes that the earth is nothing more than a celestial waiting room for eternal life. A guy who lives in palatial mansions soaked in luxury. And somehow it is the non believer who is plundering the environment?!?

So is the Pope an Idiot?

HELL YEAH!

2010
03/31
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Traffic Week?

Seriously! What’s with this Traffic Week thing?!? You have cops all over the place looking for people who have broken the most trivial of traffic laws and fining them. Cars being towed away as if there is a competition among cops as to who gets the most number of cars in. And not to mention Linda on FM 99.7 praising every cop that busts a reckless driver, cos, hey, a coffee stain on his upholstery can cause a pile up killing many innocent commuters! It’s about time someone fined her for violating all known limits of bullshit.

Will a Traffic Week cure this guy?

So what’s the whole purpose of this Traffic Week here? I sure cannot figure it out. Is it some weird way of spreading awareness? If it is I doubt it is working. I mean, if you need to have a Traffic Week to understand that zipping from the fourth lane to the first and then back to the fourth so you can go for the exit all while maintaining a speed above 120km/h is dangerous, you are probably pretty much beyond repair anyways. Besides, what happens after this Traffic Week? Are things gonna be back to normal? What about a month from now? Will we completely eradicate the practice of using phones while driving? Will we never see people zipping from lane to lane at mind numbing speeds?

Like most things, this Traffic Week is not going to have any effect on the way people drive out here. You are still going to have reckless buggers trying to break the sound barrier on the road.

2010
03/16
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Yesterday Was Scary!

Yesterday was one of those days that have you worried your worst nightmares were coming true. Everyone has their own set of worst nightmares. Some are scary like being trapped in a small glass box while dangling a top a skyscraper (that probably has to be a favorite among people who suffer from vertigo and claustrophobia). Others are just down right embarrassing like being asked by your parents to show the uncle, who just walked in to your apartment, how you dance or sing and then feeling like a jack ass as you do. I am pretty sure many of you have had that experience!

I guess yesterday was my day I guess. There I was walking around a shopping area in Salmiya with my wife happily looking at different kinds of clothes. As my wife was trying out different outfits, I was spending my time looking at other clothes in the shop wondering why anyone would wanna buy clothes that don’t cover anything much. You know the clothes that defy the whole purpose of clothes. Hey! I am not complaining, just wondering.

So anyways, as I was killing time looking at clothes and mannequins, suddenly out of nowhere there was this real weird feeling in my tummy. You know… the feeling that the guy playing pool in your tummy pocketed the second last ball and is just about to clear the table? Yeah that one! All of a sudden a nice evening has turned into the hunt for tranquility!

Thankfully, we had Marina Mall close by. I hope I am this lucky all the time.

I also hope nobody at Marina remembers me. 😀

2010
03/16
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I Hate Being Dragged Into Stuff!!

Ok this is gonna be a rant… So bear with me…

Every once in a while, people get dragged into places they didn’t want to be. It could be a silly thing like attending the birthday party of the one year old kid of a neighbor who you hardly know or it could be something annoying like being stuck with a relative who wont let you go to the movie you bought tickets for till you give him a full review of your activities for the last month. People get stuck in lots of awkward situations…

To me it happened last weekend. As some of you know, I am a married guy who currently lives in a joint family, joint with my folks that is. I know, it’s probably not very macho for some of you guys out there, but I don’t have a choice at the moment. Anyways that’s a discussion for another day.

So every once in a while my dad goes mad and forgets I am not a kid anymore. Almost always, it’s about attending religious activities like prayer meetings and church etc. And if there is one thing I hate, its forcing religion on to others.

This weekend, after me and my wife made plans of hanging around in Avenues, my dad got the sudden urge to drag us to a church prayer meeting. My attempts to avoid suffering the boredom of having to sit in the basement of a school singing stupid songs with uncles who are unimaginative about ways to spend a weekend were thwarted by him because he felt that everything in life should not be about entertainment. Apparently, by his own logic, prayer meetings exist to provide a balance to our lives by providing adequate amounts of boredom and bullshit.

So we accept our fate and take solace in the assumption that we at least get to go on our own. But that too is thwarted when my dad demands that we tag along with him! If you know my dad, you would know that anything you say against a demand will get you a lot of hot air and incoherent yelling that will leave yours ears ringing.

So I bit it down and climbed into his car to go for the GODDAMN prayer meeting. And man! Was that place full of jobless uncles or what! I had one of the worst evenings of my life! Second only to the yearly ritual of going to Good Friday services! I don’t know why every single idiot, even the once who never set foot in a church on any other day, just HAS to come for the Good Friday Service! Anyways, back to the prayer meeting, after suffering 3 hours of singing boring songs, listening to a lady screech – ‘bla bla bla… kathaave’ a gazillion times and the priest go on about something about Job and lent and what not, everyone settles in to have food. Since I was too pissed for that, I spent my time outside counting the number of things I could have done and the number of missions I could have completed on Assassin’s Creed 2. And then my dad comes out and we all get into the car. That’s when it happened. The very first thing he said after all that ‘spiritual enlightenment’ is “The food was really good.”! And I am thinking – W T F!!!

It’s never about God or Jesus. It’s always about looking good and keeping ones ego sharp. ‘You have to socialize’ my dad constantly says. The problem is – I don’t want to socialize with people with a hollow sense of prestige. People seem to think that being close to the priest is a big deal. Its not! It’s just a bearded guy in a weird costume and funny hat you want to hang out with! Not to mention he talks weird too.

I always had a problem with the concept of prayer. Why does an omniscient god want us to beg for things he already knows we will want? He already knows everything even before we are born anyways. Besides, what do you do when whatever you pray for does not happen? God’s will? Well won’t god do his will even without you begging? I just don’t understand the logic of praying!

And have any of you have heard how the average Orthodox Christian or the Marthoma or even some of the Catholics pray? It’s a whole lot of mumbling and repeating lines from prayer books over and over again. Most of em don’t even know what they say during service or during prayer! They just mindlessly repeat stuff!

I mean… Really, if a god is actually listening to this, I am actually surprised he has not swatted us like flies! 

2010
03/10
CATEGORY
Religion
5 comments

I’m Back!

So I guess I am back after a pretty long time. I have been having quite a hard time trying to clear up my head to put something down. Had a great vacation and been back to the grind at office for about a month now. Actually office is getting pretty boring with a big lack of clients coming in with all the recession and what not going on.

So basically, I am pretty jobless most of the time.

We had a great time back in Kerala. Enjoyed a couple of days in a lake side resort in Kumarakom and even did some fishing!

Caught a couple of those small fish that you can’t even cook. But then we weren’t fishing to cook. Poor fish though. We forgot all about them and left em in the bucket…

I caught fish!

 

Yup... Thats all the fish I caught and forgot...

2010
03/09
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