Time is 9:46 PM

I am back to my seat and three guys come to announce the best live action award. The category doesn’t sound familiar, but sounds important. Whatever !

The Oscar award for the best live action short film goes to will tell you later.

By the way, did I tell you – Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire are tied at two awards each. Lets see who wins the battle of the Oscars. My heart goes for Slumdog Millionaire but my brain for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I hope my heart wins.

9:52 PM

Hugh Jackman is back and is busy talking of “Change That Has Come”…..He is talking of Mamma Miah and the musical. He is now singing, dancing live “Mariah….” from Mamma Miah…along with guess who – Beyonce Knowles!.

Oh My God!

This is the first time I am seeing him on stage and Hugh Jackman is phenomenal.

A Musical Oscars indeed. All the performers from Mamma Miah look so beautiful including Beyonce Knowles

Time is 9:59 – Time for a break and some grub – Salads, bread crumbs, light mayonnaise and lots of water. Not so spicy, right ? So uncommon for an Indian like me. Isn’t it ?..anyways, time to move on

Five actors including Cuba Gooding Jr. comes onto present the Best Supporting Actor.

The Oscar goes to the Late Heath Ledger for The Dark Night and the family (his mom,  dad and sister) came to receive the Oscars. All three of them spoke and accepts the award. An emotional moment, indeed. May his soul Rest In Peace

Who will win the Best Actor award ? – Mickey Rourke ? Wait for some more time and you will get to know that…

10:13 PM -

The best documentary award goes to James Marsh, Simon Chinn for Men On Wire. The winner shows some magic on stage. Very creative!

10:17 PM

The best Oscar for the small documentary short film goes to Megan Mylan for Smile Pinki – Another Indian film. Wow! This probably is the best year for Indian cinema at the Oscars for a long, long time to come. Hey, this is Icing On Cake!

Popularity: 31%

If somebody were to ask me what is my vision for India:

The first thing I would like to see is all foreign nationals queuing up in Indian Embassies to obtain an entry into our country around the world.

Indian Rupee taking over as a standard measuring currency in the world. What a great feeling to think that rest of the world is measuring their economy against Rupee value. Lot of handwork for all our finance ministers on the measures they bring to make it happen.

Dignity of Labour

Our country still has some false notions where parents aspire their kids to be a doctor, engineer or a software expert by profession. Our society needs to recognize and respect all professions with dignity. You still see some of the eyebrows rising or people making faces if a girl is been married into a family other than known professions. A cosmopolitan thought process need to be induced. A wake up call for all those educated people in our country to give it a serious thought. The same parents would not mind if their son working as a petrol attendant on a foreign soil but has countless objections in our own country.

Change in Education System

A change I would like to see where parents do not thrust their choice upon kids, instead kids are left freely to choose whatever profession they would like. Our schooling system needs a bit of changing to encourage creative things taught to the kids compared to more of classroom instructions. We should start valuing kids not based on academic percentage but on creative thinking.

Fight Unemployment With Charity Work

You all would agree that unemployment is one of the big issues in India. So what is the change we are looking here? How about Government to undertake charity programs to help people in India and involve unemployed youth towards reforming the society. Their charity work should be accounted and recognised in every job that they are seeking or rather preference to be given to those youth who were involved in improving our society.

My India can be an aspiring place.

Image Credit: Shashwat Nagpal

Popularity: 13%

Firstly before I go over the IPOD NANO I would like to give you a brief history about what made me opt for an Apple product (of all the myriad choices available in the market). The choice of the Nano went through enough deliberation as my previous purchase of the IPOD shuffle was one which left me smiling for 4 years. This also meant that I needed a player which could handle my appointments (outlook synchronization), my podcasts, and also have the time to show me some pictures and movies with crystal clear sound (tall order eh?).

Though there are a lot of Apple fan-boys out there, I don’t think Apple makes the best hardware (audio) as Iriver. Creative can beat them on pricing and very good sound. I went for the Nano as I needed reliability which I had found in my earlier purchase of the shuffle. I was lucky that I got this as a gift – a gift when unwrapped was beautiful to say the least. I can’t blame Apple for holding the market to ransom with their products. Their presentation has always been impeccable.

Anyways, I unpacked the package and there are the usual accessories USB dongle/charger (charging for some reason for Apple has always been through the USB though there are chargers which are available in the market which allow you to use the standard Power Socket to charge your pod), Nano Quick Start Guide, Apple Earphones, Nano Dock Adaptor and of course the Nano 3G.

On the first look (I got a black pod) it looks a beauty. Simplicity pervades every part of the Nano experience. May it be just going through the menu or transferring your songs onto the Nano (through ITunes). On a more detailed note let me break down all aspects of the IPOD NANO Xperience (XP is integral

Look and Feel

Smooth finish. Though prone to smudges due to the glossy finish, with the core being the touchpad which is core to the Nano and allows you to access all menu functions. The screen has a 5 cm wide screen (color) supporting a resolution of 320 * 240 pixels. The best thing is that the small size of the screen is not an impediment to viewing small movies (long movies might be a bit too tough on the eyes).

Sound  

Music/Photos/Videos (post conversion) are transferred through ITunes. I don’t use ITunes personally as I find it easier to use Winamp to manage my music collection and also manage the POD (Winamp plug-in).

Though there are some things where it is inevitable that you use ITunes, like managing your podcasts, videos and of course to use your POD as a drive. What you use is per your convenience.

Headphones

The standard pair of headphones needs to be discarded and you would need to invest in a good pair of head/ear phones to love the sound that the pod delivers. I use a Creative EP-630 which augments the aural response and is also a snug fit. The sound is impeccable with correct highs, mids and lows and I love listening to the podcasts, music and movies with the pod. I am not a music connoisseur so I can’t comment on the perfection of sound

Overall the pod 3G experience has been wonderful. Will give a more in-depth coverage in the 2nd part of this article.

Popularity: 18%