Things like The Sex Party. Not a party in the sense that I would imagine it (a lust filled mad orgy with lots of illegal substances) but something on the lines of the Green party. A political party campaigning for sexual issues. Well, talking about sex I was reading that the biggest controversy in the Catholic Church is currently about the usage of condoms. I guess the latex lobby would love a pro-condom Pope to win.
Talking about condoms, have you noticed how much choice of condoms there are today - I mean you could have a store full of condoms and each would be of a different variety. Insane. Just check out the Durex website (which I spent the last ten minutes surfing... always on internet is a great thing! But it is a very well designed and informative site) they sell a lot of things - these include sex toys which are sold under a new range called 'Play'. But back to the point they have 12 different ranges of condoms and god knows how many variations for different countries. Add to this choices from hundreds of other manufacturers and you'll see what I mean of being spolit for choice. What is interesting though, is that not so long ago there was almost no choice, and the condom industry has followed the well-trod path of hundreds of other consumer products.
Of course, nothing beats the new Mercedes E-Class when it comes to customisation. Even though in India, buying an E-Class means an usual choice of two engines (E240 petrol and E270CDI unless you import) in more civilised nations you have a choice of 23 engines, 50-something upholstery options, 100's of electronics options. All in all, doing the permutations and combinations, the Mercedes E-Class can be configured in 3.5 billion different ways. That is 3,500,000,000 different ways. I don't know if there are that many motorised vehicles in the world.
I don't know how I exactly feel about all this. I mean choice is a great thing, but having too much choice is a bit of a bummer. I used to be sort of person who used to go to the Nirula's in Defence Colony and spend twenty minutes choosing between 21 flavours of ice cream. Imagine what hell Baskin Robbin's caused when they launched 10 more flavours. I went psycho the first time I went to a Baskin Robbin's store. That is also a reason I don't always like buffet meals - you want to try everything and end up eating too much. Of course, you can't not like the lunch buffet at Three-Sixty but then again I always end up eating too much there.
Just look at mobile phones. Now that I'm in the market again, I clamour for days when there was only the Nokia 3310. Everybody owned that phone. It was sturdy, durable and despite the fact I broke the screen on one, I loved it. Now, even in the Rs 5000-10000 price bracket for lowish-end phones you get screwed. Even if you are like me and swear by Nokia. I mean you can start at the Nokia 2600 colour phone at around 4k to the N.Gage at 8k and god knows some ten phones in between. Add SonyEricsson, Samsung, LG, blah blah blah to the mix and you get my point.
However, I am bugged that Coke withdrew Vanilla Coke from the market. The Vivek Oberoi 'Wakaw' ad was psycho and totally ineffective, but I really loved the drink and now I see a lack of choice in the soft drink market. Lemon Pepsi ('Twist' I think they called it) was not so good, but then again, I'ld rather have a Nimbu-Lemon somewhere in DU or even make my own Nimbupaani rather than drink a fizzy lemon drink, not to say that the babe in the new Limca ad isn't hot. She is smokin'....
OK, now the score has reached 139-9, I wonder who'll get the man of the series award - I think either Shahid Afridi or Naved Ul-Rana, but i'll bet on the former. Afridi did set the pitch on fire with explosive (I think I need a stronger adjective here) batting. One billion people and we can't find a decent team.
Anyway, I was reading this rather amusing webcomic called 'Beaver and Steve', I know it is silly, but it is a change from my daily reading of Aaron McGruder's very controversial and extremely funny strip The Boondocks (I think the best syndicated comic that is not available on any Indian newspaper - Doonesbury comes in The Asian Age). In fact the decline of comics oin the newspapers is quite a shocking fact. Despite stories of a 'media' boom happening, no-one has written about the near total absense of Indian comics (or any comics). Only The Pioneer used to carry Manjula Padmanabhan's comic strip and now carries something called Rajnish or whatever (quite unremarkable) but HT and TOI are both guilty of doing nothing. I will suggest to ASG that now that Ninan works for them he resurrects Detective Moochwala. That was my favourite comic that he drew in Target, which remains the best publication that AP has ever brought out.
Anyway, I'll post again in the evening. Oh, and we've just lost by 159 runs.
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