Retinal TV, tipsy birthdays and other silliness

I was going to put up a serious, contemplative and thought-provoking post today but when I sat down to write this out I realised I couldn’t be bothered, told myself “screw it” and decided to just write randomness and be myself as usual.

So with that in mind here’s another combo-post! First up we have some cutting edge, scientifically asesome madness for you to widen your eyes at – the first step toward real-world contact lenses that will have an display/interface built in for you to watch stuff on!

Oh no! 'The Ring' is back!!

Okay, this is just freaky. We know LED lights are versatile enough to be used for practically anything, but LED contact lenses? Really?! Yes, as it turns out, really. University of Washington researchers have figured out how to implant semitransparent red and blue LED lights in contact lenses, for the purpose of receiving and displaying data in sharp visual images and video. This means wearers will literally be able to watch TV or view photos that are projected directly onto their eyeballs…. (read the rest HERE)

Imagine it! Sitting in a boring meeting staring right at your boss while secretly watching the latest episode of “Game of Thrones” or “Futurama”! Or even better, sitting with your girlfriend at a movie and while she sits and fantasizes she’s living the fairy-tale cliche ridden carcass of the genre you can be watching the latest action extravanganza or even porn!

I don’t know about you but that as a concept is a close second to the holo-deck from Star Trek because while that ones a fully interactive environment that can literally be ANYTHING you want it to be, this one has its limitations but it can go anywhere with you. Tough call…

Anyway! And that concludes the educational part of today’s blog post, I want to move on to other randomness now, followed by some amusement, some music and some hotness – hell it is Thursday and Im feeling the weekend a little!

This past Monday was my birthday. Don’t worry, this is not a “sad” story or a “hangover”-style party recollection, though I imagine that might be quite entertaining in its own right. No I had a relatively peaceful birthday this time around, was in fact planning on it being so damn peaceful that I was pretty much doing everything in my power to avoid the topic – though we all know that you can’t stop everyone from remembering.
My folks remembered but only a handful of my friends did until the last minute and by then it was too late and I had pretty much reached the “no, I didn’t plan anything, just going to take it easy and use it as a relaxing day off” statement phase. Works for me, even my free time no longer feels like my free time anymore and that aside honestly I had neither the heart nor the inclination to party.
Maybe I’m jaded a little early, who knows, but I find myself getting more and more bored and tired of city-life. Don’t get me wrong, I love Delhi, its home and I find it a task imagining settling in a new place anywhere in India, let alone abroad. But the stresses, the traffic, pollution, lack of a clear night sky, the rat-race, the social scene, the pretenses and expectations and all the various other things that get pronounced in a city have just been grating on me for a while now and I guess in some ways its been feeling like its coming to a head.
Who knows, perhaps one of these days the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back will land on me and next thing you know I’ll be blogging about something totally mental and maybe if half sane, making extensive plans on how and where I plan to run away to from this madhouse I call home.
Anyhow, long story short I was planning on a day of nothing – but I didn’t count on one of my oldest and closest friends, hereafter know as Energiser-Singh. The man’s about as opposite a person from me as one can get save a few choices in entertainment like music and movies and the like that we share in common – yet somehow we’ve been great friends and always had an excellent equation. Guess its living proof of “opposites attract”? So, seeing my lack of initiative and feeling a need to do something as he often does (hey, he is my opposite after all) Energiser-Singh elected to have me over at his place on Sunday since Monday is a pretty awkward and crappy day to be having a party – though now that I think on it, if they could muster the energy Im sure people would like the idea of partying on the first day of the week… but I drift… So we hung at his place, had many variations of alcohol, blew little clouds around, played video games and laughed and vegetated to the best of our abilities. It was actually pretty damn close to what I had in mind anyway because it was like reverting to a younger more care-free time in life.
Before you think we were drunken animals though, when I talk about the variety of alcohol you need to understand that when its the two of us and a small group of people Energiser-Singh gets truly motivated and creative with the drinks and honestly the man is damn good at what he does when it comes to food and drinks. He can think of combinations and such that would never even occur to me. For example: one of our drinks that evening was a shot of Grappa which was like fire going down, chased by a sip of a delightful espresso that was warm and seemed to add to the warmth of the alcohol while killing the burn, and lastly we took a small spoonful of coffee ice-cream which was cool as it went down and all the negative of the alcohols downward journey was gone and the play of flavours in all this face-shoveling was exceptional!
And so it went until about 2.30 in the a.m when we all three (Energiser-Singh, his wife and me) felt tired and felt Hypnos calling and I decided to hit the road for home. Honestly, I don’t know how his wife deals with us, I would imagine she would prefer to do something else rather than be stuck with us!
So I found myself home again soon after and crashed into bed resoundingly, as quietly as I could manage. Sufficient sleep for maybe 6 hours or so would be perfect! But of course I underestimated the power of love! Of course I couldn’t sleep immediately as is my regular problem and was awake till almost 4 – then before I knew what was what, at 8am I was being roused because my Dad wanted to wish me and give me presents. Is that not awesome? I was happy and touched, but I was also barely functional – I think I must have looked overcome with joy because my eyes hurt so much from the light and my brain was barely able to string together words and allow me to walk, and so eyes watering like faucets, talking gibberish and trying to vaguely resemble a human being I spent the morning with dad till he left for work and then I had to do the same.

C’est la vie non?

So now we come to the end of our time together this day, I leave you with a video that I came across by chance, the song is a fun and simple theme song for a truly lazy day that I think there’s a good chance you’ll be familiar with, but its this alternative video that I want to share with you – I think Id like to be like this when I get older. What about you? Oh and I love that little bit at the end plus Shatner’s cameo!

Till next time then good people, cheers…