Sunday, December 12, 2010

F.R.I.E.N.D.S


There are times when you feel like expressing much more than you believe are capable of. Then again simply surrendering to this notion leaves a burning desire inside. I don't know what is funnier - the fact that this post is a result of deep yet totally wrongly-timed thoughts for many long days just before finals or that finishing watching all the seasons of "Friends" was in a way an impetus to writing this!

Seldom while meeting people we ever think of the way in which they are going to affect our lives. People we meet through other people, people we meet through shared interests and people we meet and get acquainted just plain randomly. Of these hundreds of people whom we choose to call friends, generally for a lack of a more appropriate term, few are the ones we inadvertently give the power to truly affect us - to characterise us and shape us, to love us and heal us, to hurt us.

We all have a set of closest friends; we all define them in unique ways surely, but we all have them. Differences and arguments, likes and dislikes, tastes and opinions, all these become simply too shallow and inappropriate when it comes to these buddies.

Although "Friends" has been one of the landmark sitcoms of our generation and appreciated worldwide mostly for its sheer humour, it has a much deeper appeal to me (and I'm sure to many others). The relations, interactions and emotions portrayed are not much removed from reality and yet the characters survive it together. Although our lives may not be television sitcoms we all tend to relate to the situations in one way or another.

Buddies, the closest ones, have an unsaid understanding; to love and accept unconditionally. We are all individuals and have infinitely different reactions to the same situations. What matters the most is that we learn to put every presumption aside, every mistake, small or big, every misunderstanding behind and appreciate the bigger picture. That is moving on; even if it means fighting with yourself to keep a bond unbroken.

It is not rather difficult to shred apart a deep relationship. Faith is what builds the walls of the fragile fortress of a long and enduring friendship, one that is as strong as any kinship. Faith, which by definition comes from experiencing something, from believing in something with even the slightest crevice of logical explanation.

PS: I don't know why I am writing this (maybe one of those things I would feel nice about reading years later) but I owe a lot to my dearest of friends and even the thought of drifting apart from any one is disturbingly painful...


Thursday, December 2, 2010

Internet Radio

Internet radio is not a new concept and like most of us I knew it existed, but never thought of it seriously until a few days back when I noticed a friend of mine listening to it (yes, Dipti you get honourable mention here! :)) It's a really cool alternative to putting songs from your disk in a playlist and then changing that many times over to get rid of the boredom! Obviously we listen to the 'normal' radio stations for this reason and also the fact that you frequently get to listen to newer and more importantly random songs!

I'm not quite certain how many guys actually listen to online radio - specially desi friends abroad. The coolest part is if you have a data plan on your cell phone you can listen to online radio on the go too! One of my favourite station is Radio NRI. To listen online from your computer simply follow the link below -
Once on the site, click the 'listen now' button on the top right part of the page - it asks you to download a m3u file on your disk - now play this file from any music player (almost all should support this format). m3u is basically a playlist file and this particular one simply has a single entry to an online stream. You can also google for the station and go to some site which has a player embedded to listen straight from there but I personally prefer this way 'coz I don't have to open a page every time, the file is always sitting in my media player.

To play from a cell phone you need to find your player which supports 'live stream' - in the phone I have (Nokia 5230) the default 'media player' doesn't have this feature but the included 'Real Player' supports streaming audio/video.
Most phones will have this player or you can install it pretty easily (google is your friend!). Now in the player there will be an option of 'new link' under 'streaming links'. In the 'new link' option you will have the option of saving the link in the phone / memory card. Choose one and then in the field where it asks for a web address (where mostly you'll see the first part automatically entered as 'rtsp://') enter the following address exactly as it is -
rtsp://qtss.streamguys.com:554/radionri.sdp

This station is pretty good and you can always find tonnes of other stations (yes, including Radio Mirchi etc) in the same way - the only small problem with listening to Mirchi this way is that if you're in a totally opposite timezone you'll have to listen to really crazy old and in general crazy songs since it's bang in the middle of the night in India when it's day time at your place!