>, <, = (read greater than, less than, equal to...this is not an ode to Asian Smileys)

So in my continuing series of lists comes this one...Being the judgmental chap that I am, I have seen myself comparing characters, places, people and what have you against other characters, places, people and what have you. Think of it as my own mental version of Celebrity Deathmatch but not necessarily with celebrities and not involving death. Here is my list of comparisons:

1. Fred Flintstone>Tom from Tom and Jerry
There's a difference between being dumb and cool, and just being plain dumb. This is where Fred Flintstone beats out Tom. Tom just gets the shit kicked out of him by a stupid little mouse whereas Fred can do cool stuff like bowl well and stuff. Also, Tom is always kinda lonely. Fred has friends. And family. And dinosaurs. And he eats Bronto-burgers while Tom gets excited when he smells food that Jerry gets to before Tom can. Yeah, Tom is lame.

2. Paul Krugman>Thomas Friedman
I like credible sources for news articles and although both these chaps are very knowledgeable about what they write about, there's a difference. While Friedman does often bring up interesting observations, his tone is too patronizing and often doesn't give you arguments that would counter his conclusions. On the other hand, Krugman has a refreshing and admirable ability to explain how complex economic theories are applicable to events we witness every day, without sounding arrogant at all. I still read both their editorials in the New York Times, but I find myself a little more excited to look at the Times on Mondays and Fridays rather than Wednesdays and Sundays.

3. Bally Sagoo>DJ Aqeel
So a little background here...Bally Sagoo was one of the pioneers of remixing old Hindi/Bollywood songs (early 1990s) but hasn't done much in the better part of the last decade and DJ Aqeel is somehow related to some actors in Bollywood and is now one of the highest paid DJs in India. I have and always will believe that Bally Sagoo was wayyy ahead of his time. For some reason his music didn't receive the appreciation it deserved and is now mostly forgotten. DJ Aqeel on the other hand lacks talent in my opinion and lost every last drop of respect I had for him when I asked him to play 'Zocalo' by Armin van Buuren at an "Ibiza Night" at Poison in Bombay (where he used to be the resident DJ) and he said he didn't have anything by him. Err...yeah. Also, when I randomly play songs from my ipod, nobody ever gets too excited about a DJ Aqeel song but I've yet to find someone who doesn't think about happy times when I play a Bally Sagoo song.

4. Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture>Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist
I know I'm going to offend a few people with this, but I'm not a big fan of Paulo Coelho. Spinning stories that are big metaphors for life are cool and everything, but while reading 'The Alchemist' I just wanted the book to end because it's pretty obvious what the underlying message is right from the beginning. I didn't really feel like I was gaining anything by reading page after page. The opposite is what I got out of Randy Pausch's 'The Last Lecture' which has easily been the best book I've read in a while. I'll also openly admit that I choked up a few times during the book, but more importantly, the real examples that he gives followed by brilliant, timeless advice makes it easy to understand why he was such a great human being. Both the books are about finding and chasing your dreams, but only one really moved me.

5. Rajnikant>Any actor, living/dead/past/present...
...and I'm also going to be bold enough to add 'future' to that. I'm sorry but if an actor has the power to sell out theatres nationwide for THREE WEEKS on opening day, he's truly unbeatable. Now my non-brownies might say "Who is this demi-god that you speak of?" and probably haven't heard of him at all before but know this...he lights his cigarettes with guns, can start twisters with his feet and when he had to kill three guys with one bullet he shot it and then spliced it in half with a knife thereby killing the two on the side with half bullets and the guy in the middle with the knife. Chuck Norris wishes he had half the strength of Rajnikant.

6. Red velvet cake with cream cheese icing>>>>>red velvet cake with butter cream (or any other) type of icing
This really doesn't need an explanation. If you're wondering why, it's probably because you haven't tasted the former. Sucks to be you.