God's own Counterparts

And now for this week’s blog…Its about Animated movies…bet I can see some smiles! This sure is a happy blog :) I guess it all started with comic strips…people do love comic strips now a days too…a short little fun thing. But making it come to life is something more fun. After comic strips it moved on to making traditional two dimensional cartoons for kids to watch…there are innumerable characters..the most popular is Mickey Mouse…I bet everyone one of us would have owned at least one Mickey or his friend’s based goodies…like a pencil case, a coloring book or a T-Shirt…I have a friend who still loves her bedsheet with mickey mouse motifs! And it’s an immediate choice for parents to decorate their kid’s room! See how much good it does to lighten up a kids life?

Then people came up with brilliant ideas of making kids develop good habits, once they noticed that they were taking them as examples, one good thing was Popeye…I remember this cute little kid neighbour of mine…who relished every spoon of spinach he ate as he watched his hero bash up the “bad guys”. Most of the small episodes apart from being hilarious also had a moral to the end of it…which made growing up into a good individual spontaneous and fun.

Then came the trend of making all fairy tales into movies, its not that it stopped kids from actually reading books, but they sure did enjoy it when the compared their imagination about the character with what was portrayed. Disney is a major player in this, ‘The little Mermaid’, ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarf’s’, ‘Aladdin’, ‘Lion king’, ‘Cindrella’, ‘The Beauty and the Beast’ are few of my favorites!

As Computer’s started touching each and every aspect of life…It made a huge difference in entertainment as well…This is when the trend of Computer Animated motion pictures came into existence. My Dreamland “Pixar” started off the trend with Toy Story. Listed are few of my favorite characters
1) ‘Buzz’ and ‘Woody’ were wacko! ---Toy Story
2) ‘Flik’ is Inspiring --- A Bug’s Life
3) ‘Boo’ is the cutest --- Monster’s Inc
4) Optimistic ‘Dory’ is adorable --- Finding Nemo
5) Dashing ‘Dash’ --- The Incredibles
6) The hilarious Mr.”Donkey” --- Shrek
7) Yo! Yo! “Oscar” --- Shark Tale
And much much much more…..People, if you have not checked out these guys your missing something in life!

These animators, more precisely creators are almost close to God! Bringing things to life in unimaginable ways! In real movies, how much ever hard the Director tries, he cant get the Actor to bring out the picture he has in mind…. because he just doesn’t feel the emotion. That’s why animated movies do a much better job; the creator brings to life exactly what runs on his/her mind! They can bring emotions to even non living things!! Ever watched the short of Pixar’s mascot, a table lamp…which comes jumping on the screen at the beginning of every Pixar movie? Watch it here http://www.pixar.com/shorts/ljr/index.html (Watch the other shorts too Gerie’s Game is my favorite http://www.pixar.com/shorts/gg/index.html amazing how just a few minutes can create an impact)

One day I will have my own collection of all the possible animated movies and watch it even when I have grown old.

Addressing to all those Big guys who think all this is kid stuff….watch it to feel it! This is not branded to be for 12 years and below…it’s meant for all those who will appreciate, characterization, imagination and creation!!! Is there anyone who doesn’t???? Well… Think again then!!!

And Dearest Greatest God! even though they dont use flesh and skin as raw materials like you do, they do your kinda work pretty well with pencil 'n paper, computers, film 'n projectors and the creativity you gave them ofcourse !

Thanks a Bunch!

Hey people thanks a lot, I never thought I would get a response as good as this. You guys sure have encouraged me to get going with this.

After these few blogs the following were a couple of comments/feedback I got
1) My blogs have a serious connotation.
2) My blogs are too lengthy, and this is not good because, I wouldn’t have much blog traffic!!

To first answer those suggestions…I agree my blogs were serious so far, but I plan to touch various aspects and issues of life involving all kinds of emotions…so watch out, and about the length…hmm I did warn you…anyway I’ll try to be succinct, but not for the sake of having more blog traffic, but for not wasting the time of the few who honor me by reading my blogs. Ahem…my next blog is not concise…actually I have more to say about that topic than what’s been typed out…Its my obsession in life! I could bug you about the next blog’s topic for an entire day hmm actually maybe a week non stop! Oh im really not sure! hee hee hee! So forgive me this one time! :)

Keep visiting my blog! Anyway “Thoughts Unlimited” comprises of my thoughts and yours too! So keep commenting! Its more fun that way!!!!!

Hunger Happens

This blog is very close to my heart…because it is about something which I have always had in mind, but recently has got me thinking a lot…

The end of last year saw a very catastrophic event, the “tsunami” I remember spending the entire day in front of the TV during the break, in my aunt’s house at NJ watching news reports of how disastrous it proved to be. I logged into the internet and went through few articles and browsed the sites of few relief organizations…This blog isn’t exactly about how big a tragedy the tsunami was (enough has been spoken about it and whatever I blog down will be redundant), its about something which has been of concern for a very long time but has gone unnoticed.

So as I was browsing through, I stumbled upon this word “Hunger”. I stopped and thought, how would it feel to be hungry, I mean real hungry, hungry for long. I am sure those who are reading this blog haven’t experienced that; you wouldn’t have access to a computer with Internet in that case.

I made the following questionnaire based on my thoughts, How many of you’ll have actually said or done or felt the following

Told a colleague or a friend at school that you were eating lunch only at 2 or 3 in the afternoon because you had too much work and how miserable you feel about it?

Plan a diet for yourself and cut down on what you eat for breakfast, and binge by the time of dinner because you feel sorry for yourself because you haven’t eaten properly? (Why else do you think diets don’t work?).

Complained when a friend did not serve dessert at the party he or she threw?

Envied people who could dine in five star hotels and resolved that one-day you would make enough money to treat yourself to that?

Go berserk during grocery shopping, fill up your refrigerator, and later on leave most of the stuff to just rot in there?

Refused to eat the nutritious and hygienic lunch your mom packed for you, but prefer to go for some “fun food” decorated enough to be a treat to both your eyes and taste buds?

Thought at a dinner party that it is stylish to leave some food on your plate once your done, because the host might think you are a glutton if he noticed your plate was clean?

Thought the chef of a restaurant was not good in the way he presented the food on the platter or thought there was something wrong with the color or smell of the food?

Took antacids because you over ate at a party?

I am sure all of us have yes as an answer to at least one of the above, but at these times have we ever thought that at that very instant there are children, men and women losing their lives because they are hungry? Ever thought you could actually stop living because you were hungry? No way…you are sure you will have access to food at the most in a few hours after you start feeling hungry.

Did you know?

Hunger and malnutrition claim:
10 million lives every year
25,000 lives every day
One life every 5 seconds
Hunger & malnutrition are the number 1 risk to global health killing more than AIDS, malaria & TB combined
For 19 cents you can feed a hungry child in school for a day (ever used only 19 c in your life?)
1 out of 7 people in the world suffer from hunger
Six million children under-5 die every year from hunger. (Remember being papered with healthy food at that age and you just wouldn’t eat?)
The world produces enough food for everyone. But over 800 million people remain chronically hungry.
Statistics Courtesy: World Food Programme.

What touched me most was a little square on the left side of the web page - http://www.wfp.org/, which flashed the following

US $10 500 cups of rice
US $25 100 school meals

On browsing the site is saw how much of a difference very meager amounts like this could make, and I bet this amount must be much lesser than the amount we would spend on eating food outside say two or three times.

I am not trying to say that we should starve, eat less or never eat out (None of these will help or make sense in this situation), but it would be great if we keep in mind that we are more fortunate than millions of people around the world and we should never complain about the food we eat and if possible try our best to help the hungry. We should try reducing the number of times we eat out and save that money to feed a whole lot of people who are hungry. Shouldn’t be a big deal. ( Easier than sticking on to your diet ;) )

Food is something basic! Its usual to most of us no big deal in getting it. But, its not so for a whole lot…. think about it and let me know what you feel.