Wearable Tech

Every Tom, Dick, Harry and his cousin Lily is making a smart-watch. The more I read about it the more it becomes evident that a watch revolution is coming. A multi-functional thing that sits on your hand and does wonders! As of this writing I know of Sony, Apple, Dell, Motorola, LG, Qualcomm, Samsung and a host of other companies planning to make watches (or wearable-tech)

Now, now! Wake-up CASIO. You guys are the pioneers of cool and sturdy watches. Back in the days, you guys defined wearable-tech for starry eyed kids like me.

I know, I know you have a smart-watch in the market already. The Smart-watch with Bluetooth however is amazingly 19th century for what the general public is expecting from Smart-watches or (wearable-tech) in general now.

So what would I expect in a CASIO G-shock branded wearable-tech watch?

1. Step Counter
2. Altimeter
3. Thermometer 
4. Floor Counter
5. Heart beat meter
6. Sleep monitor
7. Vibrating Alarm
8. Atomic timekeeping
9. Solar Power
10. Tough
11. An amazing app that syncs all this data and lets me download it for my own further analysis

I know this would take some iterations to get to ultimate reality. And we (I am shamelessly representing all wanna-be pseudo-health conscious geeks like me) are ready to wait and purchase through all those iterations. But its already late, and if you have not already started, I think you guys are mighty late to the game!

I know most competitors are going the Android way – pluck some apps into your watch, make it read your SMS, Caller ID etc. I don’t find a reason to pour 200$ down the drain to read SMS On my watch. What I need is way cooler and geeky. And I really really hope that its a G-shock!

What I am

Sometimes I wonder, is Sesame street really for kids? I mean considering that even I (the man!) have written about them two times already on this blog here and here and then significant part of most of my weekends even now is spent video-surfing Sesame street on YouTube!

For some of you who don’t know, there is this small segment in Sesame street where a celebrity comes over and either teaches the viewers (presuming they are kids) a word or if the celebrity is a singer, then they actually sing one of their famous compositions with lyrics converted to appeal kids. Over the past several years there have been numerous celebrities and even I am catching up on them every weekend.

However, I discovered a gem of a song that Will.i.am sung on Sesame street and its titled – What I am. Though it’s a kid’s song, it is amazingly inspiring and has a very catchy tune.

Hear it here … and be inspired!

Will.i.am–What I am

And if you are particularly bored, here is a compiled list of some of my favourite songs on Sesame street by celebrity singers:

• Outdoors – Jason Mraz
• Don’t give up – Bruno Mars
• 1,2,3,4 – Feist
• A Song About Elmo – Adam Sandler
• Hot N Cold – Katy Perry
• Lullaby - Andrea Bocelli
• Lullaby – Ricky Gervais
• I Don’t Know Y – Norah Jones

Yeah, why should only kids get to have all the fun?

Ramen

One Japanese food item that gets undue attention amongst Indians (at least the ones that I know) is Sushi (and to a certain degree – Sashimi). May be it has got to do with the colourful way that Sushi is presented or may be that we can’t digest the fact that the sashimi on sushi is raw.

Anyway, like any other person determined to explore culture, I learned to eat sushi (yeah with chopsticks and wasabi) while in MBA. Later I graduated to liking it and have had a lot of sushi sojourns ever since.

Sometime last year, however I ventured out to one of the lesser known items (at least to me) of the Japanese culinary experience. The Ramen. Ramen is a huge bowl of soup with noodles, meat, flavoured egg, spring onions, bean sprouts and a broth that is amazingly flavourful. Slowly and steadily, Ramen has now climbed up to the spot of being amongst my most favourite foods of all times. Yeah right up there sitting close to the butter chicken and my mom’s dried fish chutney.

All my friends who wanna try Japanese cuisine, I strongly implore you to go treat yourself to a bowl of Ramen. The broth is amazingly flavoured and with all the herbs and spices, it is a culinary delight. And the thin piece of meat literally melts in your mouth (Sorry Vegetarians – I haven’t had veg-Ramen) Btw, if you are a calorie conscious eater – Ramen is on the heavier side and you may wish to treat yourself only occasionally.

And what do you guess, I am gonna do after posting this? You guessed right – I am going for a sumptuous meal of Ramen.

Be cool Honey Bunny

Just finished a marathon few evenings of watching movies by Quentin Tarantino. To be precise these are the movies I saw:

• Kill Bill Vol. 1
• Kill Bill Vol. 2
• Reservoir Dogs
• Inglourious Basterds
• Pulp Fiction
• Django Unchained

Now most of the people I know share a love-hate relationship with all of Quentin’s movies. Everyone agrees that the storylines are good, but many people also complain of his use of excessive violence in all of his movies.

Frankly, I don’t understand his rationale behind making his movies so gory, but probably that makes them look – “I don’t give a damn” – cool. The kinds in which you can identify the lead character as a super bad a$$.

I didn’t exactly grow up seeing his movies. I mean my conservative middle class Indian upbringing would have definitely forbade me from seeing anything of this sorts. But, over the last few years I stole a glance of a scene from here and there (mostly from YouTube I guess) till I finally succumbed to watching the whole movies. Quentin’s movies tend to grow on you and the more you see, the more you love them. I got hooked and I guess I have managed to see Pulp Fiction at least 4 times.

Pulp Fiction–Dancing Scene

Now, I have become a self confessed Quentin fan. I like his style of “cool” and I can pretend to like his gut wrenching goriness. After all, I have to live up to be a man. Anyway, just in case you are interested – What do you think is my favourite Quentin movie of all times? Well – its Inglourious Basterds. Its cool, and in his own style, Quentin manages to rewrite history in less than 3 hours.

Inglourious Basterds–Trailer

And before I end, I know I still have to watch Death Proof and Jackie Brown. I shall do that real soon.