It's not everyday that a 65 year old lady talks to me for 15 minutes and makes me laugh like a best friend since first grade would. My landlady, Sunny, an asian woman (I don't if she's Chinese, Korean or Vietnamese) came down to collect the rent for this month. My bunker is right under her bedroom so sometimes when I play music loudly, I worry if it bothers them or not. I told her to instantly call me anytime my music is too loud. She calmly told me, "Chirag, you need your music. It doesn't matter to us if you play your Indian music, Rap, or Hip-Hop loud, because we have learnt to live with it." There are not too many people like this in the world, people who want to "step into a college student's shoes and look at life their way."

Sometimes I wonder what makes some people so understanding. She told me she recognized some song I was playing yesterday and I told her it was Frank Sinatra's "That's Amore." Her husband, Ed, told me when I first signed the lease, that he was a big Sinatra fan too. She admitted Ed sings quite well, but just lacks the "something" that was in Sinatra's voice. So every now and then she sits in front of Ed and his microphone and tells him to "talk to me... sing for me..." I tell a lot of people that I don't really want to live beyond 60. I mean come on, what exactly will I do after I get old? Just sit around and nothing! But just imagining that if I'm lucky, I could end up with someone like Sunny, who can make each day seem like the best day of your life, makes me want to live beyond 100.

Her elder son she said was into Heavy Metal, even had his own band and played guitar really well. But obviously only one in a million makes it big in the music industry. After years of trying to break into the music industry, he ended up being a successful accountant on Wall Street. At his wedding, she told him to cancel the regular wedding-band and instead get his own Heavy Metal band to play the music that he lives for. Her son's friends call her Ozzy-Mom, basically since she told someone her favorite musician was Ozzy Osbourne. Nowadays, she said, some people are calling her Hip-Hop-Ma since she likes listening to the latest music by Eminem and Naaz.

Times change and the only ones happy, are those who change with it. And yet she said "technology is not that good and someday you will realize that only music and nature will bring you true happiness, not checking your email." It's at this point, I guess I differ from her. I'm sure most of you reading this actually side with her but I can't. For me technology is just another aspect of life that brings me pleasure. I'm not writing this 'blog just because I want to write. I'm also writing it because I love writing and instantly sharing what I write with you. And technology is an integral part of it.

I dread the day when I might look at a computer and curse at it that it ruined my life. A lot of people have told me it'll happen someday. I have, of course, cursed at specific softwares on dreadful days, but never have I looked at a computer and thought that it has caused me pain. It's second nature to me. Call me a nerd/geek/whatever but technology brings a form of joy that is unfelt by me otherwise. I'm not an artist, I'm not a creative musician, but I am an innovative programmer. I don't understand how thinking up a new and faster way to access websites is any different from writing a poem, because as far as I know, both bring the same amount of joy to me, first when I create them, and second when others appreciate them.

The cliched saying goes that "Technology is most efficient when it's invisible." I'd like to say that "Technology, once it becomes invisible, is no longer technology at all - it's art; inspring, life-giving, and comforting."

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