The iPod is a brand of portable digital media player designed and marketed by Apple Computer. Devices in the iPod family provide a simple user interface designed around a central scroll wheel (with the exception of the iPod shuffle). The standard iPod model stores media on a built-in hard drive, while the smaller iPod shuffle and iPod nano use flash memory. Like most digital audio players, an iPod can serve as an external data storage device when connected to a computer.
Discontinued versions of the iPod include two generations of the popular iPod mini and four generations of the full-sized iPod, all of which had monochrome screens except for the fourth-generation iPod with color screen (previously sold as iPod photo before it replaced the monochrome iPod in the top line). As of March 2006, the lineup consists of the fifth-generation iPod, which has video playback capabilities, the iPod nano which has a color screen, and the iPod shuffle; all three versions were released in 2005. The iPod is currently the world’s best-selling digital audio player. The bundled software used for uploading music, photos, and videos to the iPod is called iTunes. A music jukebox application, iTunes stores a comprehensive library of the user’s music on their computer, and can play and rip music from a CD. The most recent incarnations of iPod and iTunes have video playing and organization features.
iPods have developed a large following among the tech-savy. Today, iPod accessories represent a rapidly-growing market, and in response, Apple has released the iPod Hi-Fi stereo system.

          Last week was very frenzied as we had the inter department cultural activities in my college. The total day was very dreary except for a little light at the end of the day. We have all bunked the entire week in the name of practice and what we did was nothing. There were quite a few events, a few being off stage and the others were on stage on the cultural day. With a bunch of seniors of my department being mokhai and lacking everything, the entire burden fell on our class and we took it with pleasure and also with great encouragement and support from our Head of the Department the scenario was healthy and we were confident of winning the shield.

           Almost all the events were dominated by our group and a lot others felt it bad but we somehow lived up to the expectations. The main event for me was the quiz and I being one of the runners up in the last year was given priority and I participated along with Samba and one senior girl. The quiz prelims was the first event this year and out of the 9 departments, 4 would be short listed for the finals. We made it to the finals and there was a healthy competition among the teams and the finals was to be held the next day. The quiz was conducted by Mr. Caleb, a staff member of the physics department. Last year it was very lively but this time it was very easy and a neck to neck quiz ended up with three teams tied for the second spot and we somehow broke the tie-breaker next day and ended up winning the second place.

          For the past four years the quiz was unanimously won by the best student my college has ever witnessed and one among the best humans I have ever witnessed, Vinod ji. He also showed up his gratitude in coming to the college and conducting the Dumb-C this year. It was very great show with Samba, Mahesh and Raja narrowly throwing away the prize to the professional ECE team. It was an honour competing with this guy the previous year and definitely something which was missing this year was due to the absence of his charismatic batch.  

           I was a part of the variety entertainment team and the culturals being on Monday, we were not able to go to the college on Sunday for practice. About 15 boys and girls turned up at one of my classmate santhosh’s home for practice on Sunday. His mom and dad provided great hospitality and it was a great day .With the script being changed 4 or 5 times we finalized something and performed something. The cultural day was very lull and it looked like the events were conducted for name sake. We did pretty well in the variety show and won the second place. With a lot of internal politics, the shield which should have come to our department was given to our fucking rivals.

          In the evening noted music director Harris Jayaraj turned up for the prize distribution and I felt happy for getting the prize from him. We also got cash prize for the on stage event and all of us stormed in to nice hotel and ate like some…before singing and dancing the way in the college bus.

          Last week was very frenzied as we had the inter department cultural activities in my college. The total day was very dreary except for a little light at the end of the day. We have all bunked the entire week in the name of practice and what we did was nothing. There were quite a few events, a few being off stage and the others were on stage on the cultural day. With a bunch of seniors of my department being mokhai and lacking everything, the entire burden fell on our class and we took it with pleasure and also with great encouragement and support from our Head of the Department the scenario was healthy and we were confident of winning the shield.

           Almost all the events were dominated by our group and a lot others felt it bad but we somehow lived up to the expectations. The main event for me was the quiz and I being one of the runners up in the last year was given priority and I participated along with Samba and one senior girl. The quiz prelims was the first event this year and out of the 9 departments, 4 would be short listed for the finals. We made it to the finals and there was a healthy competition among the teams and the finals was to be held the next day. The quiz was conducted by Mr. Caleb, a staff member of the physics department. Last year it was very lively but this time it was very easy and a neck to neck quiz ended up with three teams tied for the second spot and we somehow broke the tie-breaker next day and ended up winning the second place.

          For the past four years the quiz was unanimously won by the best student my college has ever witnessed and one among the best humans I have ever witnessed, Vinod ji. He also showed up his gratitude in coming to the college and conducting the Dumb-C this year. It was very great show with Samba, Mahesh and Raja narrowly throwing away the prize to the professional ECE team. It was an honour competing with this guy the previous year and definitely something which was missing this year was due to the absence of his charismatic batch.  

           I was a part of the variety entertainment team and the culturals being on Monday, we were not able to go to the college on Sunday for practice. About 15 boys and girls turned up at one of my classmate santhosh’s home for practice on Sunday. His mom and dad provided great hospitality and it was a great day .With the script being changed 4 or 5 times we finalized something and performed something. The cultural day was very lull and it looked like the events were conducted for name sake. We did pretty well in the variety show and won the second place. With a lot of internal politics, the shield which should have come to our department was given to our fucking rivals.

          In the evening noted music director Harris Jayaraj turned up for the prize distribution and I felt happy for getting the prize from him. We also got cash prize for the on stage event and all of us stormed in to nice hotel and ate like some…before singing and dancing the way in the college bus.

     Today my name was published in Chennai’s most fauvorite, popular and adored newspaper THE HINDU. Though only 41/2 lines of what I have said has been in print I am feeling happy for to the best of my knowledge this is the first time anything what I have written is getting printed in this coveted tabloid. Rarely days open for me without THE HINDU and ten days before I saw this topic for ‘Voice your views’ column-BLOGS: boon or bane. For the uninitiated Voice your views is a weekly column where readers express their views on various topics.

     As soon as I saw it I thought I should send something even if it is getting published or not. That evening after I returned from college I typed my views and mailed it to the HINDU. Today morning as soon as I woke up I opened the metro plus and checked the column and my article was right there in the centre of the page. A gleam in my face and I continued reading and also found a few common names.

What I said….
Every one of us has got something to express to the world and wish to voice our views on various facets. Blogs are a blessing in disguise and act as a powerful medium manifesting the freedom of speech and expression of thought. If we leave aside some unscrupulous acts blogs fall under the stronger side and are definitely a boon to community development. The saddening fact is the diminutive reach in a cyber city like Chennai with still many people remaining ignorant about blogs.  

With little editing it got on to the papers as “FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION”  

     Today my name was published in Chennai’s most fauvorite, popular and adored newspaper THE HINDU. Though only 41/2 lines of what I have said has been in print I am feeling happy for to the best of my knowledge this is the first time anything what I have written is getting printed in this coveted tabloid. Rarely days open for me without THE HINDU and ten days before I saw this topic for ‘Voice your views’ column-BLOGS: boon or bane. For the uninitiated Voice your views is a weekly column where readers express their views on various topics.

     As soon as I saw it I thought I should send something even if it is getting published or not. That evening after I returned from college I typed my views and mailed it to the HINDU. Today morning as soon as I woke up I opened the metro plus and checked the column and my article was right there in the centre of the page. A gleam in my face and I continued reading and also found a few common names.

What I said….
Every one of us has got something to express to the world and wish to voice our views on various facets. Blogs are a blessing in disguise and act as a powerful medium manifesting the freedom of speech and expression of thought. If we leave aside some unscrupulous acts blogs fall under the stronger side and are definitely a boon to community development. The saddening fact is the diminutive reach in a cyber city like Chennai with still many people remaining ignorant about blogs.  

With little editing it got on to the papers as “FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION”  

Today I donated blood for the first time in my life and am feeling good, proud… that I have done something productive. A few of the priceless things being done by my college is organizing this annual blood donation camp. It was all decided and we were informed a long way back and I decided to donate as last time it turned out futile because of my dilemma and also that I didn’t complete 18 years of age then.  

     But today I am a major and come what may, we all started to the camp base after the second hour in college. We were given a form to fill with a lot of queries (those which I remember….AIDS? alcoholic? homosexual? etc etc etc…) Then a person pricked my finger with a sharp needle and my blood flowed out…..he then made some test and said go and sit there….) I was about to donate for the first time but I was not nervous at all.

     Here it starts…one senior guy was sitting opposite me and he was staring at something, I was diverted by someone and within a few moments he fainted and fell down. He was staring at the blood bag and the doctor said ‘psychological fear’. It was my friend Raja’s turn now and as he was giving blood, another student from my year who got up made a half-boil (a.k.a woooak vomit) on his hand. By this time it was my turn and the medical officer asked “first time a?” He then took my blood pressure and while conversing he silently pierced the needle and gave me a ball like thing and asked me to press. After five odd minutes…Over…Ok? Hmmmn…      

     Then we were given frooti, cake, biscuit packets, banana and we had all those stuff and moved. There were a lot of students who donated and though I am not aware of the numbers it was large. There were 4 or 5 blood banks and each of us also got two certificates. Hats off to the NSS unit, my college and *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* for all the students.

Today I donated blood for the first time in my life and am feeling good, proud… that I have done something productive. A few of the priceless things being done by my college is organizing this annual blood donation camp. It was all decided and we were informed a long way back and I decided to donate as last time it turned out futile because of my dilemma and also that I didn’t complete 18 years of age then.  

     But today I am a major and come what may, we all started to the camp base after the second hour in college. We were given a form to fill with a lot of queries (those which I remember….AIDS? alcoholic? homosexual? etc etc etc…) Then a person pricked my finger with a sharp needle and my blood flowed out…..he then made some test and said go and sit there….) I was about to donate for the first time but I was not nervous at all.

     Here it starts…one senior guy was sitting opposite me and he was staring at something, I was diverted by someone and within a few moments he fainted and fell down. He was staring at the blood bag and the doctor said ‘psychological fear’. It was my friend Raja’s turn now and as he was giving blood, another student from my year who got up made a half-boil (a.k.a woooak vomit) on his hand. By this time it was my turn and the medical officer asked “first time a?” He then took my blood pressure and while conversing he silently pierced the needle and gave me a ball like thing and asked me to press. After five odd minutes…Over…Ok? Hmmmn…      

     Then we were given frooti, cake, biscuit packets, banana and we had all those stuff and moved. There were a lot of students who donated and though I am not aware of the numbers it was large. There were 4 or 5 blood banks and each of us also got two certificates. Hats off to the NSS unit, my college and *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* for all the students.

That dark blue colour faded jean…If I remember right I bought that jean when I was in my twelfth standard and I have got a good fondness towards that attire. Over two year’s time a lot of changes have occurred both to me and to the jean. I was very lean (underweight, malnourished, Somali….) when I was studying tenth but put on weight when I was in my eleventh and twelfth and things became worse during the after board summer vacation that it was toooooo long and I entered college only in winter.

Coming on to the topic…ok the jean. Since engineering college students affiliated to wooaak… are prohibited from wearing jeans (dress code sucks!!!) I rarely get opportunities of wearing such apparels and that occurs only on weekends. Everyone was crazy about the faded jeans during my school days and everyone had at least one. Not to leave aside the trendy me ;). I bought it in a local store and it was not of very good quality but it has served the purpose I think I would be in records for wearing the same pant for the maximum number of times (read-also without washing Ok…Ok…thanks for the compliments.

It is both advantageous and disadvantageous of having a brother who shares the same hip size as you. It was my brother who experimented with the pant first when he wore it to the washed out India-New Zealand one day encountered and when he returned home a little of the bottom part of the jean has also been washed away. I never failed to do my part to his similar faded jean. If you look keenly, the bottom part of the jean of the people who wear it beyond their leg length despite wearing a shoe or any other footwear would be invariably torn. I bet my theory is right and I have noticed it a lot. So my advice is fold the bottom part or alter it before it tears. If it tears never mind it is fashion.

The jean is also a body-hugging one and also I measure my size changes with respect to the pant. Taking or putting things inside the pockets is also a challenging facet. The woes continue when you wear a pocket less t-shirt. Everything you have to jostle into the sticking entrance of the pocket. If you put some coins it gets on to the bottom of the pocket and I remains impossible to take it out without removing the pant. If you keep a pen it protrudes out and punches in the belly when you bend. There are also similar other complicatedness which cannot be mentioned openly.

All these can be attuned but the most strenuous thing is to keep my pencil box sized cell phone inside the pocket. Mind you I cannot carry it all the way in my hands and if I do so I get some strange looks. Somehow I thrust it into my pocket with great intricacy and a moment later it starts ringing. Now I start taking it out and by that time the call becomes a missed call. Once I was eating in a hotel in a similar situation and it started ringing. Remind you that the difficulty becomes double fold in the sitting posture. When you see me from a distance, digging something in the right pant pocket with the left hand you would feel that I am performing some complicated paschimuthanasana in the public.

Similar thing happened again in the bus sitting in the crooked seat with some unknown chap near me. But this time it’s not a call but a message from Hutch. “Hi! Hutch…Simply GUESS and win…guess which company manufactures the model 6600 and you could win a NOKIA 6600 worth Rs.11467. Mr.Thandavarayan won yesterday. Call 123 and say GUESS. Sms charges apply”. I avow I really got this message and there are also similar equally funny messages. I thought of throwing the cell at the person’s head sitting next to me but I somehow restrained since if I had done that I would have faced a criminal procedure!!!

P.S.: I have planned to wear the same jean tomorrow also

That dark blue colour faded jean…If I remember right I bought that jean when I was in my twelfth standard and I have got a good fondness towards that attire. Over two year’s time a lot of changes have occurred both to me and to the jean. I was very lean (underweight, malnourished, Somali….) when I was studying tenth but put on weight when I was in my eleventh and twelfth and things became worse during the after board summer vacation that it was toooooo long and I entered college only in winter.

Coming on to the topic…ok the jean. Since engineering college students affiliated to wooaak… are prohibited from wearing jeans (dress code sucks!!!) I rarely get opportunities of wearing such apparels and that occurs only on weekends. Everyone was crazy about the faded jeans during my school days and everyone had at least one. Not to leave aside the trendy me ;). I bought it in a local store and it was not of very good quality but it has served the purpose I think I would be in records for wearing the same pant for the maximum number of times (read-also without washing Ok…Ok…thanks for the compliments.

It is both advantageous and disadvantageous of having a brother who shares the same hip size as you. It was my brother who experimented with the pant first when he wore it to the washed out India-New Zealand one day encountered and when he returned home a little of the bottom part of the jean has also been washed away. I never failed to do my part to his similar faded jean. If you look keenly, the bottom part of the jean of the people who wear it beyond their leg length despite wearing a shoe or any other footwear would be invariably torn. I bet my theory is right and I have noticed it a lot. So my advice is fold the bottom part or alter it before it tears. If it tears never mind it is fashion.

The jean is also a body-hugging one and also I measure my size changes with respect to the pant. Taking or putting things inside the pockets is also a challenging facet. The woes continue when you wear a pocket less t-shirt. Everything you have to jostle into the sticking entrance of the pocket. If you put some coins it gets on to the bottom of the pocket and I remains impossible to take it out without removing the pant. If you keep a pen it protrudes out and punches in the belly when you bend. There are also similar other complicatedness which cannot be mentioned openly.

All these can be attuned but the most strenuous thing is to keep my pencil box sized cell phone inside the pocket. Mind you I cannot carry it all the way in my hands and if I do so I get some strange looks. Somehow I thrust it into my pocket with great intricacy and a moment later it starts ringing. Now I start taking it out and by that time the call becomes a missed call. Once I was eating in a hotel in a similar situation and it started ringing. Remind you that the difficulty becomes double fold in the sitting posture. When you see me from a distance, digging something in the right pant pocket with the left hand you would feel that I am performing some complicated paschimuthanasana in the public.

Similar thing happened again in the bus sitting in the crooked seat with some unknown chap near me. But this time it’s not a call but a message from Hutch. “Hi! Hutch…Simply GUESS and win…guess which company manufactures the model 6600 and you could win a NOKIA 6600 worth Rs.11467. Mr.Thandavarayan won yesterday. Call 123 and say GUESS. Sms charges apply”. I avow I really got this message and there are also similar equally funny messages. I thought of throwing the cell at the person’s head sitting next to me but I somehow restrained since if I had done that I would have faced a criminal procedure!!!

P.S.: I have planned to wear the same jean tomorrow also

My endeavor for becoming an engineer took a leap from its snail pace with the results of the third semester being announced yesterday (oops..! today, if I m correct it came around 00:30 hours) and I have cleared all papers in style also securing a good percentage. The results were expected a month before but there was a hiatus and rumours were spreading day after day. Finally the date was confirmed by a private website.

On Friday the website declared that the results would be put up by 7:00 PM and everyone was hooked on to the net eagerly waiting to see the results but not me. I shut down my system half an hour before took a book, sat in a corner and started reading. As the clock ticked seven messages started pouring in but still they were not out and the time was postponed to 9:20. A lot of hype was created by squarebrothers.com announcing “results awaited but not today…”. At last there was some error in the system and results were not available.  

Relief knocked when my friend called me at 1:00 AM and told “machan results have come, u all clear…around 84 percent da” I was almost sleeping while speaking over the phone and then realised. Then I checked the results of all my class mates and then spoke for an hour or two over the phone. If I remember right it was almost 4:30 when I went to sleep and woke up at 6:30 in the morning again as I had to attend a competition.  
At the end of the day HURRAH!!! Even though there are a lot of flaws in the evaluation and I am totally dejected with the way the lab and internal marks were awarded to some undeserving candidates, I am a satisfied customer with good returns for the meager efforts I have put in during the third semester.

I PASS!!! ME PASS!!! ALL PASS!!!