The week in re(ar)view

Open a newspaper and all you will see is mayhem. Go out on the streets and you will see the same. Television is no different. Eat the wrong stuff from the wrong place and go to the toilet and there is mayhem. What's surprising is when a day goes by without any incident. And so far we are yet to see such a day this week.

Cop truck versus people
Take for instance this week starting 12 November. We couldn't breathe a sigh of relief from last week's country wide shutdown and we have to face the start of another. Ironic but true our weeks now start by ending.

While the first day of the shutdown went without any incident the second day saw enough to pay for some TV crews next eid shopping. During a demonstration in Kawran Bazaar police thought they could clean up the mess by employing hot water jets. But since they forgot to add the soap the crowd became more agitated. So the cops thought they could break up the crowd with an oversized battering ram on wheels. In the process three people were run down and later the police vehicle was overturned, smashed and set on fire. Tally of the day cop truck: 3, crowd: 1.

Fox in the henhouse
A delegation of BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami men met the EC (Election Commission) chief on 8 November to assure of all kinds of cooperation for the upcoming elections. Does cooperation mean enforcing others to cooperate? We know for a fact that in politics the words 'enforce' and 'coerce' are quite interchangeable. So far the fox have not been given charge of the henhouse or have they been?

Who let the kids out?
What's really funny here in a very dark murky sort of way is that the country was and is apparently in the hands of children. The ladies fought tooth and nail and are continuing to do so. When one 'says a bad word' the other comes up with a 'badder' word. It's a childish one-upmanship game where the end could mean bloody nose and broken necks for a lot of people. The country-wide blockade enforced by AL is now going to face retaliation from BNP. Bloody? Hell yeah! Then we have our Chief Election Commissioner who just won't step down fro his post and no one seems to be able to make him despite his tactics being ineffective. Reminds you of a spoilt stubborn child who won't hand over the TV remote.

Some people grow up to be great; others grow up to be children.

By Gokhra and Mood Dude

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated "if GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: "If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

l. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over t the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car unless you bought "CarNT, " but then you would have to buy more seats.

6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive- but would run on only five percent of the roads.

7. The oil, water temperature, and alternator or warning lights would all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light.

8. New seats would force everyone to have the same sized butt.

9. The air bag system would ask "are you sure" before deploying.

10. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps(now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Dept.

12. Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

13. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off."

Compiled by Shamma M. Raghib

RS Mailbx

Weak-ly sports update

Last week's 'Weekly Sports Update' was probably the only flaw in an almost-perfect RS. There was wrong info and too many personal opinions. Firstly, Chelsea's new COACH is not Hilario, he's the keeper. They are also not "La Blues"(The French national team are 'Les Blues', Chelsea=France? Don't think so.). I guess these were mistakes. But was calling Chelsea the best club in Europe a mistake as well? No? That's funny, 'coz the last time I checked they hadn't won the Champions League in quite a while. Or have they even won it EVER? And their formula this year just suits them right: Infinite amount of money=Any player you want (Almost any player...some have higher class) =Trophies. The fact that they hadn't won a Premiership title in half a century before 2004-05 season is enough to make people understand how 'rich' their history and formula is! And most importantly, to prove that you are the best team in Europe, you need to win the Champions League, not beat Barca or the European champions.

According to your theory the best team now is Tottenham because they've beaten Chelsea now, or Sevilla's the best because they beat Barca at the start of the season.

As for the sudden population burst of 'oh-so-passionate' Chelsea supporters in BD, they weren't there before the money came in, and won't certainly be there when the money's gone.

The rest of the article was quite good to be fair. But the writer needs to be a bit more careful when throwing around his personal opinions.
Yasir Malek

UG:
1. Underground by Komol: This one has been one of the most anticipated albums of the UG scene this year. But apparently, it has, to some extent, failed to live up to the hype that had been created. The market response, however, have been so far so good.

2. Daak by Yaatri: Now this album is an awesome one. The music is simple, mostly consisting of acoustic guitar and keyboard works, the lyrics have reasonable depth, the compositions are done with a lot of care and the vocal is smooth enough. The kind of music that almost everyone can connect to.

3. Prarthona by Nomon: Another band mixed, released this Eid, is also doing well in the market. Though the line-up is not as big- band- studded as Underground, some people say the overall standard of this album has been better than its counterpart. Moral of the story: Big bands do not necessarily mean better music.

4. Harano Podochchhap by Disciples: Remember Stoic Bliss? They're back! Or at least, some of the members are. Last time they released an album, made monopolistic business and the trend continues. Hip-Hop is finding way into more peoples' ipods, mp2 players, PCs and where not!

5. Ajob: Maybe they are not weird (Ajob) by the definition, but their music is quite distinctive. Most numbers are very folk-based. They have covered some Lalon songs as well.

Overall:
1. Shono by Habib: More than anything the name 'Habib Wahid' has created a major sensation among the listeners of all classes. No wonder that the his new album 'Shono' tops the list by a fair margin. Tracks 'Jadu', 'Shopner cheyeo modhu', 'Ei shomoy' are likely to be in the air for quite some time.

2. Underground: Although the listeners of this album are strictly classified, the album is in race with the mainstream, probably because of the names that appear on the covers. The album has already been synopsised in the UG section.

3. Jhut-Jhamela by Souls: Souls are back in the scene after quite some time. Music has been very mature, typically of Souls and I've heard that our political bigwigs have suffered bit of a whitewash in one of their numbers.

4. Daak by Yaatri: As mentioned earlier, their music has been able to reach listeners of all classes and ages, and thus are giving more commercial albums a run for their money.

5. Prem Shikari by Balam: This former Warfaze member has decided to try things out by himself and they say he's pulled it off. The album is multi-flavoured consisting of band songs, classical-based numbers and more contemporary stuff as well.

6. Variation 25 by Fuad: Fuad has his very own style of music and this one is not very different from 'Maya-1 and 2', 'Kranti' and 're/evolution'. Pretty good studio music with an RnB flavour. Also features the popular Nescafe theme song.

7. Natoker Gaan: With growing number of Bangla channels, more people are watching Bangla TV serials. This album contains the songs of the serials. Artists featured include Habib, Samina, Kumar Biswajeet and more.

8. Drishti Jure Brishti by Kumar Biswajeet: You cannot keep this veteran off the frame, he has such immense number of fans. This latest album is very typical of him, energetic and soulful.

9. Debi (Mixed): This mixed features some of the biggest guns of the pop industry, namely James, Hasan, Bappa, AB and more. The face value is enough to make this a general hit. There are some weird things about the mixing although. Watch out for the James number 'Boma Mofiz'.

10. O're Shampanwala: Bangla movie songs have a long way to go before they can reach every other living room, but they definitely are off the mark. O're Shampanwala is featuring Close up1 season 1 stars, is carrying the baton handed over by 'Hridoyer Kotha'.

Source: Piano, Sing.
Courtesy: www.tunesbd.com