Dawn

Apple

Apple has done it again. Check out the new Apple "tablet", known as the iPad, here. Competitively priced, this could change the whole playing field.

The iPad is basically an upsized iTouch. With a 10 hour battery life, it looks like a promising venture on Apple's part, especially after their previous failed attempt to enter the PDA market with the Newton. Personally, I wouldn't say that this competes with other tablets on the market. I think it competes more with eBook readers like the Kindle from Amazon and the Nook reader from Barnes and Noble. Its a more interactive reader that offers a larger range of featutes and connectivity options. The ebook store will also do for books, what the iTunes Music store did for records, it will shift the focus from conventional books to ebooks.

Look at the possibilities for a photographer. The ability to bring his portfolio along with him at all times (shown on such a brilliant display), the ability to shoot tethered from an iPad. Wow!

On another totally seperate note, the world makes sense again. Manchester United beat Manchester City 3-1 to enter the final of the Carling Cup Final 2010.

Whose that twat from Argentina???

Naming

I have to say that the Nissan Bluebird probably has the be the largest naming farce to grace the planet earth.

Fiction

Inspired by Shuning's post, I shall attempt to conquer some of the books that are listed on the following list.

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here.
How do your reading habits stack up?

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Just listing it down as a record of sorts. Will try to conquer it in order. Which kinda sucks as most of those that I want to read a further down the bottom.

Serenade

Listened to the above album and thought that I would give a mini-review of sorts.

The title of this album is "Painted Desert Serenade". Written by Joshua Kadison, this album has a very laid back feel. Through this album, Kadison mainly explores the theme of love.

In the title song, Kadison sings about his relationship with an old lady. It sings volumes about how love trenscends boundaries set by traditionalist. His voice matches the lyrics perfectly, bringing out all the hidden emotion of this song.

I would also recommend "Jessie" and "Mama's Arms". The former speaks about his longing for a girl that left him, but wants him back again, and the former is about a mother's love.

In all, I think this album is an awesome album and one that everyone should listen to and learn to appreciate.

Watson

Been listening to Russell Watson recently. Chanced upon this song "Catch The Tears". I think the chorus is very meaningful. And speaks true of many life situations.

Who's always there to catch the tears
When they fall
Who do you run to
Who do you always call
Who's there with the shoulder when you're feeling sad
When will you see me as more than that

Planimal

Came across this.

In short, the article writes about the discovery of a new creature that appears to be half animal, half plant. It appears that the slug has "stolen" the genes needed to allow the creature to photosynthesize.

They are even able to pass the genes to the next generation, although the babies will need to eat enough algae to steal the chloroplasts needed for photosynthesis to take place.

Imagine if we had chlorophyll in us....we would look like Na'vi's from the movie "Avatar" albeit green and not blue. And if we were broke, we would just lie in the sun to photosynthesize. Amazing!

Pop

Its pretty sad that after 22 years, Michael is still learning how to rock.

Cufflinks

Happy New Year!

No resolutions again this year. They are overrated and forces you to feel disappointed when you eventually realize that you aren't going to keep them.